Can you think of a positive time when you felt completely vulnerable? Do you remember how it felt? Was it kind of like being naked, but in a good way?
We pile on personality layers for various reasons, becoming someone we weren't supposed to become. Over time we think of our layered self as being the real deal.
Granted, some of these layers are cultural, including norms of expected behavior in varying situations. But what about the layers that just distort who we are? What about the layers that interfere with our ability to Love properly?
When I act in anger towards one of my children and then I come to myself afterward, it feels as though I have a raincoat on while inside. When I refuse to really listen to my husband's perspective, I have retreated into my inner self and left him far behind. In these situations (and many others) I have lost touch with my better self, putting barriers between my dearest and me.
The human condition makes it impossible for us to get away totally from these erected walls, but that doesn't mean we should just accept their inevitability. I believe that it is preferable to seek daily to tear them down or, better yet, to seek daily to avoid erecting them at all. We will never perfect this art of openness, but we can choose to take up our cross daily and keep trying.
This sounds all well and good, but how can we do this? What is a practical way to stay vulnerable towards our loved ones?
I believe this: the more we know what it feels like to be open with our loved ones, the more we can transfer this knowledge to our daily relationships with them. But like practicing an instrument to get good at it, we must practice being vulnerable. I don't think we can master this vulnerability solely through daily, familial interactions.
We should feel the safest with The One Who Knows Us, who is there in the quiet. So training ourselves to be totally vulnerable with God is the place to start. Seeking total openness to Love--in small daily doses--is the best training there is. In our prayer "closet" we can train ourselves to be totally quiet, to trust as a child, to sit in God's presence and let him wash over us.
And let the layers fall away.
