As kids we were open and free, we could share all of ourselves with others. When we grew up, we learn that the world can be a very painful place. We learn that not everyone is on our side, and not all situations are going to go our way.
Over time, then, we also learn to protect ourselves. We build walls around our hearts, we convince ourselves that we never really loved that person who hurt us anyway, and we become practiced in the art of denial. Perhaps many among of us may agree that this is a natural process of growing up. But Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo says the otherwise.
Counsellor Shivani says as an adult our efforts to put boundaries around our hearts to protect us from feeling pain, discomfort, and hurt also deprive us of joy, passion along with love because the love and joy requires a free heart to prosper to its full growth.
With a protected heart you may laugh, you may feel happy but the feeling of “something is missing, something is empty”, will start to live within you. When you experience happiness it would never reach100% and worst with the passage of time, the happiness will become more and more conditioned to external surroundings, worldly achievements, and fulfillment of desires.
So the question is how to unlock the fear of vulnerability?
1. Do learn from the past but also learn to forgive your past: It is important to learn from past mistakes and to always strive for personal growth. However, it is equally important to learn to forgive your own lapses. How often are you quick to forgive someone else's mistake, or even truly bad behavior, while continuing to beat yourself up for a mistake that you made?
2. Don’t Just Protect Yourself Learn to Forgive Yourself too: The fear of vulnerability is ultimately a fear of rejection or abandonment. You have been hurt before, so you seek to minimize the risk of being hurt again. However, the best way to minimize the potential damage is not to build walls or try to act according to some self-created checklist. Instead, the solution is counter-intuitive. To combat the fear of vulnerability, you must first learn to love and accept your whole, authentic self.
Loving ourselves is one of the toughest lessons we will ever face. We all have flaws, imperfections, embarrassing stories, and past mistakes we wish we could forget. We are insecure, awkward, and desperately wishing we could change certain things. That's human nature. But the trick is to realize that everyone feels this way. No matter how successful, how beautiful, how perfect someone appears, he or she has the very same awkwardness, insecurity, and self-doubt.
3. Embracing Imperfection: If you see the world around you, you will agree that everyone has certain aspect of imperfection, even the people who loving and important for could be having imperfections in many aspects of life, but you would not remember them for their imperfection rather for their triumphs and shining moments and for their love for you.
So why treat yourself any differently if you have any imperfection or weakness, don’t let it bother you or feel you guilty.
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