vulnerability, intimacy, candor, community and communion

“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability.” – M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

Lately, I’ve been running a story that repeats and loops through my head, my emotions, and finally, my actions. I’m aware of it; however, being conscious of my unconscious so far hasn’t shifted a thing.

The rerun story basically revolves around this theme: It is alienating to be real, to be vulnerable, in a society that values the veneer of propriety–even masked under niceties as politeness and kindness.

They’ll just back slowly away from you lest this authenticity is contagious. I know because I witness it happening over and over .

Or the flip-side coin of the same-same story, which feels even worse to the me: they’ll drool in worship and chase you for a ‘hit’ of supposed “rarified” Presence–put you way up and out on a pedestal–still alienated, still distant.

So I tend to end this story: “I tried that and it backfired–no thanks, not again.”

I can find plenty of evidence to stay guarded and protect “myself.”  There’s the lack of reciprocity when I am real online–to the point where I feel shunned as some kind of emotional wreck and woo-woo airy-fairy chick. That shock of discovery that emotions are forbidden terrain. For instance, I hadn’t realized it was taboo to cry on the phone to your close friend (“Get a grip. I’m not speaking to you until you get it together.”) Then, there’s that “love of my life”  relationship that imploded this autumn and left a harrowing  imprint in my heart that I’m still reeling from.

Sure, there’s the counter-evidence. For instance, all the books I randomly am drawn to this past month advocate “vulnerability” and “candor” and “intimacy”–yes, even corporate “never ever ever wear your heart on your sleeve” business (see “Who’s Got Your Back?” by Keith Ferrazzi). I can toss them against the bedroom wall in fury, but they touched me instead. I cried. And not the kind of crying that comes from sorrow–more like the tears of  hope kindling again that maybe, just maybe, actual communion among human beings is possible.

Well, I’ll go out on limb here once more. The other little nudge? I started biting my nails again about a year ago, or so. Not stress. I have so much extravagant time to relax and unwind for myself than every billionaire on Earth has money.  This nail-biting had been a lifelong habit until about eight years ago. Then one day I noticed my nails were long and strong. The so-called “lifelong” habit simply disappeared as I blossomed into my authentic self.  So it was a little disconcerting that I was back to the old habit.

I tend to see the physical world as a vast forest of symbols. Now, these archetypes and symbols aren’t any kind of ultimate truth of reality, but they do permeate my sensory awareness. It’s just something I’m attuned to more than anything I learned in some book somewhere. So, with that context, I wondered what the symbolism was behind biting nails. When I observed closely, it was mostly my ring finger on my left hand the suffered the worst of all. Hmmm, so I got curious instead of worried.

It was revealed to me that nail-biting represents a need to be vulnerable and unprotected.  Especially on the ring finger, I tend to tear at the skin around the  cuticle. The tearing of skin around a fingernail signifies a desire to expose the inner self to the world. And finally, the ring finger itself represents “unions and grief” (according to Louise Hay, and it rings true–remember it’s also the wedding band finger!) and the left hand represents the feminine, “material” physical/relative world.  So, in a nutshell, I have a strong inclination towards intimacy, while also harboring grief over unions that “backfired.”

You were expecting resolution on this blog post? Nope, I just wanted to share where I am right now. How I feel. The absurdity of looping stories–and how we know they are not true and even how boring the repetition is becoming, and yet there they are. Sure, there’s some resolution coming. Whenever I stop resisting, I suppose.

“What do I know for sure is true?”

Okay, nothing I wrote is true. I cannot possibly be alienated. I don’t even exist. Existence exists. Or paradoxically just as true, I am Whole. Wholeness itself. Only discrete parts cut off might think they are “alienated.” That’s illusion. Kind of like a leaf fluttering on a tree crying and wailing out about how alienated it feels from the other leaves and the tree itself: “Hello, um, excuse me leaflet… you are the tree.”

So this post is my small attempt of trying vulnerability again. I don’t have any solutions. I’m not bursting with illuminated wisdom. I’m saying I don’t have a clue–and yet, that’s okay too. It is what it is.

p.s. The books I reference that fell into my lap include a “random” powerful section on agape (start on page 295, “No Strings Attached”) in Keeping the Love You Find, Ubuntu, The Different Drum (this book in particular has been a blessing and a balm), Never Eat Alone, Who’s Got Your Back?, and even Where Do Good Ideas Come From? (which is really focuses on collisions and community with other people sparking innovation, and not solitary confinement).

UPDATE: A few hours after this post I realized that even “vulnerability” doesn’t contain the term I’m really aiming for. Candor comes closer, more complete (as vulnerability seems to imply only sharing the struggle.)

More than anything the word that popped out during a long walk among the sage, mesquite and palo verde trees was “integrity.” I always felt as if I certainly know the definition of that word, yet went ahead and looked up online, and the first result: “an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting.” Yes, precisely. The whole shebang.