Strength and Vulnerability Can Exist in the Same Moment
I've taken pride for a long time in the fact that I'm a middle-path type of person in most regards. Sometimes this can be a pain, or difficult but generally it seems to make the most sense to me.
It's only recently that I've realized I had a big glaring exception to this, and due to the realization managed to adapt to a slightly more middle path alternative.
When it comes to fears, insecurities, wants, hopes, and desires, I tend to operate on an all-or-nothing system. If I want a thing, but I'm afraid of that thing, then my brain says "Ok well then you just don't care if you get that thing. Meh. Who cares?" Well, I care. I DO care! But, I also don't have to care so very much that a failure to achieve a thing will be the end of me. I can care about stuff without it destroying me.
So on to vulnerability. I think I've treated indifference as strength for too long, but that was not the right call. It takes a large measure of strength to actively choose vulnerability. To hand a person a piece of yourself and go "Here, you can have this. I can't control what you do with it, but I sure hope you'll take care of it." In the past, in order to do something like that I've either just trusted that they'll take good care of whatever piece I hand them, (usually to my great later disappointment) or I will convince myself I'm indifferent to what they do with it. I've allowed a lot of abuse to come my way by maintaining indifference toward how I was treated, and I've suffered a lot of heart ache for entrusting things to the wrong people.
I am finally starting to embrace the fact that I can care about myself, and how I am treated. I can care about others. I can have professional and personal goals that I very much want to achieve. I can accept that if I lose those things then it will hurt. More than that though, I know for an absolutely certainty that I can survive.
It's only recently that I've realized I had a big glaring exception to this, and due to the realization managed to adapt to a slightly more middle path alternative.
When it comes to fears, insecurities, wants, hopes, and desires, I tend to operate on an all-or-nothing system. If I want a thing, but I'm afraid of that thing, then my brain says "Ok well then you just don't care if you get that thing. Meh. Who cares?" Well, I care. I DO care! But, I also don't have to care so very much that a failure to achieve a thing will be the end of me. I can care about stuff without it destroying me.
So on to vulnerability. I think I've treated indifference as strength for too long, but that was not the right call. It takes a large measure of strength to actively choose vulnerability. To hand a person a piece of yourself and go "Here, you can have this. I can't control what you do with it, but I sure hope you'll take care of it." In the past, in order to do something like that I've either just trusted that they'll take good care of whatever piece I hand them, (usually to my great later disappointment) or I will convince myself I'm indifferent to what they do with it. I've allowed a lot of abuse to come my way by maintaining indifference toward how I was treated, and I've suffered a lot of heart ache for entrusting things to the wrong people.
I am finally starting to embrace the fact that I can care about myself, and how I am treated. I can care about others. I can have professional and personal goals that I very much want to achieve. I can accept that if I lose those things then it will hurt. More than that though, I know for an absolutely certainty that I can survive.