Vulnerability

Vulnerability is difficult. We know no matter the size of the audience, intensity of the topic, or length of the confession, we are giving up a piece of ourselves for someone else to now handle. We know that person(s) is judging us, judgment is only human nature, but it's the voicing of those judgments that we're afraid to hear. Heaving out words and confessions until our stomachs sit full of only unease is the easy part. The difficult task comes in deciding whether or not the response was appropriate or simply upsetting. We fear so often what others have to say, opinions that should so easy roll off our backs instead sit heavy as merely a weight to bear on our shoulders. We never remember the positive responses to the exposing of our vulnerable parts, either. Our mind only flees to the ways people negatively responded to the things we dreaded admitting. Vulnerability is difficult. Vulnerability blooms when relationships are expecting to grow. When we're tired of the relationship sitting idle and decide to open up on a deeper level, but the deeper levels we expose, the more we're scared to expose them. But what about the most important relationship we participate in, the one with our self? Vulnerability comes when we are expected to do something we never wanted to do, exposing ourselves in ways that only existed in our nightmares. We all know the feeling of hot cheeks and wishing to retreat back into ourselves, but we would never grow without expanding ourselves to areas outside our comfort zones, without vulnerability. And with sharing character-building pieces of ourselves to others, we often have to accept them ourselves. What if we focused on the beauty of growth and self-discovering instead of leaving our story up to someone else interpretation? Vulnerability doesn't have to be difficult. We simply have to focus on the beauty of allowing ourselves to be open, allowing someone else to see a different part of us, and allowing ourselves to grow in ways harder than most; we simply have to ignore the reactions of others. Vulnerability is a person's own journey, not another's judgment. Vulnerability is beautiful, as long as you allow it to be.