Vulnerability

I hate the word vulnerability. I hate the word sensitive. More specifically, as a man, I hate what we’ve done to them. The caricaturization of these concepts prevents us from rolling up our sleeves, diving in, and just getting on with our growth and learning. It slows us down and keeps us from being more powerful versions of ourselves. It wastes time.

Everything compelling in the world is driven by the dynamic tension between opposites. Anyone can just be soft or just be hardened; there’s little about that that is truly powerful. But when one is able to wrangle strongly oppositional energies and manage to make them work together harmoniously, that’s something special to give to the world. -
Consider the majority of temples and holy places across the world and across cultures. Most often there are gargoyles, monsters, or some intimidating depiction of warriors guarding the perimeter of the structure. The most delicate and pure is surrounded by the most savage.

I keep in touch with my animal nature because A) I have one, and that alone is enough for me to be interested and want to understand it, and B) within a certain realm of experience, it’s useful. Personally, I’ve found that the more I’ve accepted and expressed my animal nature, my capacity for loving gentleness has grown. In Chinese medicine, the Heart channel ends in the hands. Perhaps that’s not by accident - maybe the Heart feels safe to reveal itself because of the fists’ presence.

How do we learn to temper the animal nature? Practice authentic vulnerability and gentleness. How do we open to greater vulnerability? Learn how to defend yourself better. It’s funny how it works like that.

I’m not afraid to let you in because I trust my ability to push you back out. I’m not afraid of giving you all of the loving generosity inside me, because I’m not afraid to rip a throat out should it come to that. The Heart channel travels to the hands. Perhaps you shouldn’t rip a throat out unless your Heart’s in it.

As a medical provider, I believe my capacity to heal hurt shoulders is deepened by knowing how to hurt them. Not just in a technical way - by understanding levers and force application - but by the simple fact that the pendulum swings in that wide of an arc. I’m willing to be wrong about that, but I wonder.

The animal nature, the lower energies, are there because they are a part of nature, and are there to protect you because they love you. I don’t think there is growth is in denying or betraying them. Ironically, in my experience, honest acceptance and audience of them is the doorway to higher levels of gentleness and compassion.