The most courageous, fearless people I know are the ones who let themselves be vulnerable.  Those are the strongest people I know. They are the people I can connect to most because they have felt deeply, been open to not knowing the answers and have spent some time in darkness. When I am going through something these are the people I reach out to. It got me thinking about why most of us are so terrified of being vulnerable.

I find most everything about our culture works to steer us toward never getting there. We hide in busy-ness, texting, Instagramming, shopping, facebook, overeating, drinking, video gaming, exerting our control freak selves to squeeze out any potential opportunity to become vulnerable.

 Personally speaking I have often considered it an uncomfortable feeling to sit and break the command of my 'busy' life and to get into myself. I  don't have time for it, I tell myself. I'll do it next week. Or when things calm down or when I take that meditation class.  Lately I've felt my inner voice screaming to stop so I finally slowed down and started writing and reflecting.  I was shocked to find that I didn't implode. In fact I began to become more aware of my life, my rhythms and my cycles. I have begun to see how people and circumstances have been drawn into my life and to feel a level of connectedness and symbolism that never made much sense to me before.

I think so often we associate vulnerability with weakness when really it is vulnerability that is the core of our strength.