Embracing The Inevitable

On vulnerability as fuel

The vulnerability of baring myself fully
clenches the belly
panics the heart
stands my hairs on end.

It is truly the most terrifying thing
to stand in one’s authenticity.

And yet. And yet.

—Christopher Wallace, Vulnerability

I recently gave a talk on integrity. One of the five contributors to an enduring integrity practice, I told the attendees, is a willingness to be vulnerable. To be fully in your integrity is to be willing to bear the consequences of your actions. To risk consequences is to be vulnerable.

The possible consequences of choosing integrity over the various other alternatives— being silent, keeping things hidden, eschewing connection, refusing to ask for help, going along to get along— can’t be denied. The risks can be physical (I might get hurt), social (I might be ostracized or arrested), emotional (I might feel exposed or lose relationships), sexual (I might lose access to intimacy or affection), or spiritual (I might have to question my belief system).

And yet. And yet.

And yet all the best, most achingly poignant, transformative things come when we are willing to take those risks— love, intimacy, justice, compassion. Vulnerability is the coin we pay the ferryman, not to get to across the River Styx (though that day is coming for us all), but to get from our illusions of individuality and invulnerability to Lfe. Life, which is messy and short and interconnected and maddening and achingly beautiful. Life, throughout which we are constantly vulnerable, like it or not.

Author David Whyte writes:

Vulnerability is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without, vulnerability is not a choice, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding undercurrent of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others. More seriously, in refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

So, if we are undeniably vulnerable no matter what we do, the choice to risk for our integrity becomes simpler, if not easier. It comes down to how you choose to experience your vulnerability. Will you avoid it, push it away, and constantly perceive it as a thing being forced upon you by circumstances out of your control? Or will you welcome it in? Choose it on purpose? Proclaim for what you are willing to pay that necessary coin that being alive has placed in your hand?

Photo via CNN/Reuters

I don’t talk about current news often here. The lack of integrity in our political landscape seems so obvious. Why point it out as if you could miss it? But I will say that watching the tales of the uber-rich— in politics and media— has always struck me as an exercise in witnessing illusions of invulnerability writ large. The story is that if you have enough money then you can avoid vulnerability entirely. There will be no aging, no discomfort, and absolutely no consequences. And it’s true, having enough money does seem to provide a remarkable buffer against consequences of the legal or public variety. But have any of you looked at the Trump family, for instance, and felt like, “There’s a life I’d love to live. No pain or trauma there!”

Of course not. They all seem to be fairly miserable human beings, for all of their privileges. Weirdly wooden and creepy, as well. And still, like all of us, on line to die someday. So, not so invulnerable after all.

Like many of you probably, I’m curious to see how this latest conflagration involving the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago will shake out. There are those who insist requiring consequences for what possibly was a plan to sell the most highly sensitive information the government has will just kick off a civil war, so better to not. But if enforcing consequences as stipulated by law is all it takes to finally push us over the edge into civil war then not enforcing consequences isn’t going to fix the underlying problem. It simply kicks it down the road for another day.

How much longer do we think we can do that?

"When we were children we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable." — Madeleine L'Engle

There are the usual things we can do to insist on integrity in our political process— contact our Members of Congress, sign petitions, protest, vote— but I think there’s more we can do in our daily lives to turn the tide of the culture as a whole. We can accept our own vulnerability and acknowledge the vulnerability of others. We can participate in community care efforts— fill mutual aid food cabinets, work at soup kitchens, and participate in winter coat drives. We can support our local hospice organization, write cards to folks living in elder care facilities, and advocate for equitable and just worldwide vaccine distribution, just to name a few more options.

And we can take the risk to be ourselves out loud, to love openly and honestly, to speak our truths and bear the consequences.

We are vulnerable, regardless. We can waste our lives trying to run from it or we can choose to embrace it and use it as fuel to change what needs changing.

How will you use your vulnerability?