Soul
Contracts
“Nothing
ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
Pema
Chodron
Forgive
me for the constant Pema quotes. I have rediscovered her after many years and
am finding her approach to life more pertinent now than I did in my youth. This
quote jumped out at me because of a conversation we had about vulnerability in
the coffee klatch yesterday. I feel certain you have read Brene Brown’s book, The
Power of Vulnerability, or listened to her TED talk on the subject. In it
she makes a case for vulnerability as a starting point for all kinds of
innovation and creativity, but also for dismantling the barriers we put up to
protect ourselves from pain.
One of the major barriers
is fear that if people really know us, know what goes on inside our heads, they
will reject us. We try endlessly to project a strong, competent persona to the
world, while pushing down the fear of failure. Unfortunately, (or fortunately,
if you view it from the soul’s perspective), we don’t really have an option, because
life, and our contract with our soul’s incarnation, doesn’t allow us to back
out. What we are here to learn, as Pema says above, will keep coming up over
and over until we get the job done. The universe keeps dealing the cards until
we learn to play the hand. And that makes vulnerability our gateway to
wholeness. Sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it?
Pema Chodron says, “Each
of us has a ‘soft spot’: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable
and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is
equally inherent in pain.” All the experiences in our lives that produce a
potent emotional hook—ones that bring us great passion, great love, and/or
great pain—can be a soft spot for vulnerability. We develop triggers around the
things we reject about ourselves, both physical and mental. It’s easy to push
those buttons and get an out-sized response. We can either carry those painful buttons
for life and spend tremendous energy trying to hide them, or we can put them
right out there and own them. Once owned, they have less power and we become
less vulnerable.
One of the facts that may
or may not give us comfort in our vulnerability, is realizing that everyone is
walking around with soft spots. We are all dedicated to self-protection. Your
buttons may be different from mine, but we both have them. It’s okay. It’s all
part of the human prototype. The cure for fear of exposure is to step into the
light; to allow yourself to see and accept your own blemishes and then, it will
be easier to accept those of others. Because, in the end, there is no
difference between us.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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