Q: I have a question about vulnerability and the fear of being hurt. I want to surrender completely to vulnerability, but every time I try there come some images and feelings that are not from this life. They are really old – very strong violence – and I keep making these mechanisms to defend my self.
John: As those images come, instead of working with them be in a quieted, core okayness with anything that those images present to you, and a core okayness should any of those images manifest in your life.
Absolutely anything that is outside of your control you can be genuinely okay with. It isn’t real for you in your self to be not okay at a core level with anything that is outside of your control.
Q: It feels like it’s not possible to experience that again.
John: Anything that is outside of your control, you can be gentled and quieted in your heart in the midst of. That offers beingness to the circumstance. As a being, you are not vulnerable to anything that could possibly happen to your self or your body. Your being does not suffer vulnerability. It just streams, unconditionally, in the midst of anything.
All of the vulnerability that you experience is in your self. It gives you feedback of everything that your self is not in control of. What you are in control of, in the midst of all vulnerability, is your beingness. And in your self, you are in control of your attitude.
Q: I also feel that it is very difficult for me to be around people the more vulnerable I get, because I feel like everything is in me: every emotion, every stress, anxiety. Sometimes I can hold it and sometimes not.
John: You don’t need to hold it. Instead, you can be gentled and quieted in your heart regardless of how you feel in your self. There, you are being your heart instead of the incompleteness in your self; a rested heart in the midst of an affected self. Your self will then reflect your beingness, your heart, instead of your self reflecting its incompleteness and its imbalance.
That won’t lessen the feeling of vulnerability. It will really increase it, and it’s fine.
Q: So the self never really feels safe, right? It’s always vulnerable.
John: It can feel safe, but that’s highly conditional.
Q: I feel that it’s sometimes difficult to accept that there is no real safety in the self.
John: Your being is safe and you are safe in your being. You don’t need to be safe in your self.
