Notes from the wild...On being Opened Up to Vulnerability

The Next Right Thing podcast by Emily P Freeman with Scott Erikson, episode 254.

First…a podcast recommendation for you: https://emilypfreeman.com/podcast/254/

These are two of my favourite modern spiritual contemplatives - Emily P Freeman & Scott Erickson.

This episode is golden!

I’ve been self-employed for about three years now and have wanted to have a sabbatical. It’s something that before I started Wild Therapy that I deemed as an important rhythm to set in place in my year. I took a month in October 2019 to walk the Camino Portugues and I found it deeply refreshing. A pilgrimage. It was in the simplicity of my ‘To Do List’ for the day that brought such refreshment for me.

To walk.

To eat.

To follow the yellow signs.

To sleep.

And repeat.

A comforting yellow arrow on the Camino Portugese taken in July 2019.

All those things back there in my life that were worrying me…what even were they? I think it’s deeply important to make these kind of sabbaticals a priority. Granted I can’t always spare 4 weeks to get on a plane to Spain to walk! And I’m not always in a financial position to afford it but it seems that God, the divine, the sacred has, surprisingly offered up a similar kind of space for me at home and in my everyday life to sabbatical right now. Mostly this shift has come due to unforeseen exhaustion and weariness & in my circumstances where work stuff has been slower. It feels like some kind of threshold moment. I looked up the definition of threshold and it is ‘the means or place of entry or the place or point of beginning.’ But this sabbatical has not come without it’s challenges. Isn’t this always true of pilrimages - interior or exterior? I always have this idea of what each day will look and feel like. Pretty much everyday in my dreamy imagination pilgrimage feels blissful, I have deep insights, I eat beautiful food, I journal everyday, I meet beautiful people and have beautiful conversations. This was true in part on the Camino but the problem with our dreams is that they generally exclude our vulnerabilities. My dream didn’t include food poisoning where I was vomiting and had diarrhoea in the context of a albergue!! Awful! Never to be repeated please God. It doesn’t include folk who snore so loudly that the the entire albergue rumbles. It doesn’t include rain and soaking wet clothes and feet! This is what I’m being opened to in this chapter in my life. That all of life, even our dreamy Camino’s come with vulnerabilities included.

And it feels like in this season in my life, I’ve been opened up to vulnerability. I’m sure this is actually a good thing but despite being a counsellor, this is not somewhere that I feel entirely comfortable. Just this week my sister called me and said she was worried that I wasn’t doing that great. And she was right. In this time of less work, less direction, less focus, less money, I have been deeply confronted by all of the armour that I wear that protects my identity.

Self sufficiency.

Individualism.

My often futile desire to make things happen.

The illusion of some kind of control over any of it.

A reminder of a guttural sense of what depression feels like once again.

This isn’t to ensue compassion or empathy or God forbid pity for me. This is me with all of my real life vulnerabilities at this moment in time sharing with you, openly and honestly.

It’s interesting to me that when everything that you place your identity in is stripped back…what’s left is me, myself and my larger than life vulnerabilities. It’s extremely confronting and it’s been good for me to pay attention to what kind of moves are happening interiorly within me at the moment.

Scott Erickson says in this podcast episode that “When we imagine or when we dream about a situation or a scenario, we never bring our weaknesses and limitations to it because that doesn’t sound dreamy, but that’s the only way that we can be in our lives is with our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, limitations. Vulnerability I think is less about those weaknesses and limitations and more about our relationship with them. I think our relationship with our vulnerabilities usually begins with, “Oh, these are the things that are in the way of me getting to a life that I want.” But I have found that maybe they are actually the way forward… it’s in our weaknesses and limitations. These are the things that actually connect you to this desire that’s calling your name. Vulnerability is always the recipe for transformation. So if you’re like, “I want to be transformed,” sometimes when we pray, God, please change my life, we don’t know the cosmic strategies that start to get put in place. Mostly change isn’t going to come through you killing it, it’s going to come through the armour being taken off where the tears are kind of really close to coming out all the time. Those are the ingredients for transformation, I’ve found.” Find Scott & Emily’s full podcast transcript here.

If I’m honest, which unfortunately is one of my desires for this writing space - to be an honest space. I have had more than a few times this week where the tears were really close to coming out all the time. And they did.

I have wept at the sense of aimlessness I’m experiencing at the moment. I have wept at how confronting and difficult I have found building a business and a brand. I have cried over not feeling like I’ve got what it takes to bring my vision to birth. I have poured out my longing and desire about all I hope it could be without much hope or real life tangible doorway of hope in the here and now. I have felt like the grace somehow and for some reason has lifted and I can’t help but feel lost in the midst of all of it. Another little chink in the armour is coming off.

I have also hung a bright star curtain of lights in my living room window. I have had Indian takeaway with good friends on a Saturday night, listening to the first Christmas playlist of this year and chatting until midnight not realising the time. I have had homemade chai lattes with my sister who bought me the most exquisite and expensive advent calendar on earth - thank you Tony Chocolonely. By the way I only just noticed the word ‘lonely’ in Chocolonely and felt like even the advent calendar knew where I was at! I have had tapenade on olive bread by a roaring fire with my Auntie. I have listened to how tricky this season is in her life too. In very different ways and for very different reasons.

And maybe this is what they call a life?

This is life, in all it’s messiness and vulnerability.

This is it and despite it all, I am thankful to be here for the ride. I’m thankful to the ups and to the downs. I’m thankful for sisters who notice you’re feeling a bit down without ever mentioning it and then buying you a luxury advent calendar. I’m thankful for a Mother & Father’s love in the midst of it all which shows up in different and complementary ways. I’m thankful for good friends and Peshwiri Naan bread.

In the midst of the messiness of life.

I am thankful that life itself is vulnerable and I was made to be too.

I’ll leave you with this excerpt from Honest Advent by Scott Erickson…you’ll have realised by now that I am a huge fan of his offering…

“Our assumptions hinder our spiritual journey in all kinds of ways. And the antidote to assumption is surprise. The surprise of Christ’s incarnation is that it happened in Mary’s day as it is happening every day in your lack of resources, your overcrowded lodging, your unlit night sky, your humble surroundings. It’s a surprise that life can come through barren places. It’s a surprise that meek nobodies partake in divine plans. It’s a surprise that messengers are sent all along the hidden journey of life to let you know you’re not alone. It’s a surprise that you will be given everything you need to accomplish what you’ve been asked to do. It’s a surprise that nothing can separate you from the love of God. Nothing can separate you from love. Your assumptions believe there must be something that can but surprise, nothing can. May you thank God with joyful surprise at how much you have assumed incorrectly.”

I hope this speaks gently to you on your way…

Until the next time.

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