Embracing Vulnerability As The Gateway To Intimacy

Hello and welcome to the CalmCast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Clare Downam,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt-out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The CalmCast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today,

Intimacy and vulnerability.

And,

You know,

That word vulnerability has been very much used in recent years,

Hasn't it?

I think Brene Brown brought it to our attention with a lot of what she said.

But I thought,

Do you know what,

I'm going to actually look the word up.

What does it actually mean?

Because we talk about it a lot,

And yet I kind of thought I knew,

I thought kind of I know what it means to be vulnerable,

To put yourself,

Put yourself out there maybe,

Share things that perhaps some of us maybe wouldn't want everybody to know.

And so I looked it up,

And it says it's putting yourself in a position of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed emotionally and physically.

Emotionally or physically,

Or both,

I suppose.

And then intimacy,

Which is closely acquainted or familiar.

So let's look at that word vulnerability first.

There's something there about,

So being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed.

And mostly here we're talking about emotionally,

Aren't we?

But where does that possibility exist?

What really do we mean by that?

Because that possibility can only exist in one place,

Can't it?

And that is in our thinking about what the result of something that we would share with somebody would cause them to do.

So I guess in our closest relationships,

It might be that we think that by sharing with somebody that they might leave us,

Might abandon us.

They might reject us in some way,

They might leave us.

If we share something that we're perhaps struggling with at work,

That that might lead to a sack or us being judged in some way by our colleagues.

But all of that is us getting ahead of ourselves again,

Isn't it?

All of that is us guessing what the future might hold.

And so what I think probably happens in most of us,

It certainly I can think is what would happen for me,

Is that an idea of something to share would come to mind.

And that idea would have a good feeling with it.

Like I'm at this stage in this relationship where it seems to make sense to share this particular part of me,

To let people know about this part of me.

So then I would,

You know,

I would,

Something would come to mind,

This thing to share.

And then my thinking would say,

Don't do that,

It's dangerous.

There's,

It's not safe to do that.

You're exposing yourself.

And there may be a consequence,

An emotional consequence probably.

Well,

An emotional consequence for the ego,

Of course,

For our thinking,

For how we see ourselves,

Which is what the ego really is.

It's just this concept of ourselves,

Isn't it?

But I don't think any of that's true.

We don't know when we share something what the result of that will be.

But we can certainly have a lot of stories about it.

And,

Of course,

The mind does come in.

You know,

The human brain comes in to try and protect us,

To try and show us where our folly may be in terms of sharing something that's vulnerable.

So when we're having an idea to share something that's vulnerable,

Or,

I mean,

Even us viewing something as being vulnerable is even thinking anyway,

Isn't it?

Let's just go with that because it's easier to talk about it.

So the thought to share something comes to mind,

And that comes from wisdom.

It comes from intuition.

Now,

When we're in a place of intuition,

We are in that closely acquainted,

Familiar place with another person because we're seeing that other person.

We're calm,

So we're connected to them.

And so what's coming to mind for us to say,

If it's coming with a good feeling,

Then it's much more likely to be trustworthy.

And the thing that's not trustworthy is all that thinking that says,

Don't share that.

Oh,

They're not going to like if you share that.

They're not going to want to be around you.

But in actual fact,

It's thought that separates us,

Especially fearful thinking.

So we have a great idea,

Something to share,

Something to say to somebody that we initially know is a connecting point with them.

But then the thinking comes in and says,

No,

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

It's dangerous.

You're going to put yourself in a position of likely to be attacked or harmed.

So we don't.

And,

You know,

You hear stories of people,

I've heard people say,

You know,

I wish I'd said that to the person who's no longer here.

I wish I'd told them this about me,

Or I wish I'd told them how I feel about them.

And I have no doubt that those people had the thought to,

When they were calm,

When they were connected to intuition,

They had the thought to say the thing to the person they loved,

And it just kept getting squashed out.

Because if intimacy is connection,

Then it's available to us in the calm.

Always it is.

It's like I often say,

You know,

We are,

If we talk about this,

If we look at the oneness,

There's this sense that there's this energy of life that connects us all,

That is us all,

And then the noisy thinking comes and that noise covers up that connection.

That's the noise of separation.

It's the noise of there's a me and a you and we're separate,

We're not together and all that.

And that's not a space for intimacy,

Is it?

And what's coming to mind is that when we're in that space,

When we share something,

We're vulnerable,

We,

Or maybe we're not vulnerable,

Maybe we just share something,

You know,

Exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed.

That possibility only exists in the ether.

It's not real.

There is no real thing.

Vulnerability is a thought.

It's an idea that we've created that there is some danger in something we might say or share with somebody.

All of that is just an illusion,

A total and utter illusion.

It's yet again one of these words that I keep coming up against that to me really is just an illusion.

We're only vulnerable if we think we are.

Maybe we're just sharing something.

And without the thoughts of danger,

Then are we,

Do we even need to be,

It's a bit like confidence.

Do we need to be confident if we don't believe all our thinking that we can't do something?

Do we need this overcoming of,

You know,

Do we need to be vulnerable if we don't in the first place believe the thinking that says this is dangerous to share this?

It's another one of those words that's got this illusory nature to it.

It's made up.

I should have looked up the origins of vulnerability,

Shouldn't I,

When I came on,

Like I did with perfect a little while ago,

Because it's not real.

All of this language we're using to create barriers and to create walls between ourselves and other people,

To create walls between ourselves and the outside world,

To create walls between us and our intuition,

They're all illusion.

Intuition says do a thing,

Say a thing,

Share a thing.

Thought says no.

Thought says that's dangerous.

Thought says you're going to be ouchy that,

Don't do that.

People are going to laugh at you,

You're going to look stupid,

Whatever else,

It doesn't really matter.

And that's then,

If we manage to do the thing,

We call ourselves vulnerable.

We say we're being vulnerable.

But the whole thing was an illusion in the first place anyway.

It really was.

And underneath that illusion is this sense that we are already closely acquainted,

That we are already familiar,

That we are all the same,

That there is this oneness that connects us.

So that's me smashing up bits of language again.

But I hope you've heard something here.

I'm going to keep exploring this relationship thing.

It's so interesting.

And as usual,

You know,

Alongside these three sessions that I do,

There's some lovely courses on Insight Time.

Well,

I think they're lovely and other people seem to think they're lovely too.

And,

You know,

Access to me through lives,

Which I'd love you to join me on one of those sometime.

So thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you found that helpful.

Just a very different way of looking at things.

Thank you so much for being here.

Take care.

Lots of love.