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Articles
Authenticity, Intimacy, and Vulnerability:
The Path To Owning Our Power!
by Rusty Stewart, Ph.D.
Can you see the similarities in the first three words of the title? Is it safe for you to be intimate, authentic, and vulnerable? Do you see the strength behind these ways of being? What does power have to do with all this stuff anyway? Guy Finley asks some interesting questions in "Let Go And Live In The Now." "What are these unseen forces that are at work within us and that want to keep us from realizing a relationship with our own secret heart? What must we do to realize the hidden power, promise, and freedom that awaits us in our own Higher Self" (Finley, 2004)? These are intriguing questions to be explored in this essay.
Let's start with the similarities. To be authentic means that we are able to access and present ourselves without masks and facades. This requires an ability to accept ourselves exactly the way we are. In essence it means we have to become vulnerable and trusting. Not exactly an easy undertaking, especially if we have had a history of being hurt by opening and revealing our inner selves. However, this is the recipe for intimacy, and we cannot have deep meaningful relationships with ourselves or others without these necessary ingredients.
It may not feel safe to trust letting people in to see our shadows and wounded selves. This presents a problem with integrity. Integrity means wholeness so unless we can embrace all aspects of ourselves we cannot heal and re-experience our wholeness. We may need to do some deeper therapy work to get to the source of the fear and release the energy associated with it. Our belief or thought systems will probably need to be repremised too! None of this happens overnight, but it doesn't have to take a lifetime to significantly improve our reaction and relationship with fear. Safety and trust are prerequisites to true intimacy, authenticity, and vulnerability.
Many people balk at the idea of being vulnerable. They perceive this as a weakness. They also interpret feeling as a weakness. However, it is impossible to be authentic and intimate without showing ourselves fully. This means being vulnerable. Our strength lies in our vulnerability! Doing our personal growth work takes courage. Being vulnerable, intimate, and authentic takes courage. When we are able to step into and interact from our authentic self, we draw upon a strength that is unfathomable. You see, self trust is fully accepting who we are right now, not 10 minutes from now, not 10 weeks from now, or 10 years from now. We are already healed, whole, and 100% authentic. We just have to wake up from the nightmare and release the fear. It's as simple as that!
At this point you may already know where we are heading. Authenticity, Intimacy, and Vulnerability mean Power! We tap into our co-creative relationship with our higher selves when we own and live in authenticity. We are in sync. We are in the flow, in the zone. We realize that everything else we thought we were was just an illusion, a mistake, and error. Intimacy and vulnerability are the fuel that drives our authentic selves, our Godselves. We are unlimited in our potential when we live from a place of integrity and authenticity. The universe supports us, God supports us, our higher power supports us, spirit supports us, and we -- our authentic, intimate, and vulnerable selves -- support us. What Promise! What Freedom! What a gift of Love!
Yoga Living, May/June 2005
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