Vulnerability & Connection — Are They the Same Thing?

A Saturday morning walk and a holly leaf, brought into focus something I'd been quietly turning over for weeks. Are vulnerability and connection really opposites, or descriptions of the same thing?

There's no way I was going to turn around and drive home just for footwear.

It was a Saturday morning full of sun. I'd woken slowly, the way I like to on a Saturday — giving consciousness time to inhabit the body before the day begins. As I lay in bed, I could feel that Kiko, our 20-month-old cockerpoo, was in her waiting spot atop the sofa cushions by the entrance to the lounge, so I decided to get up and go be with her. An hour later I found myself pulling up to the woods for our morning walk, and as I parked the car my consciousness moved to my feet. I was wearing my son's sliders and white socks — something I distinctly remember telling myself I would never be caught wearing. Yet there I was. White Adidas trainer socks. Black Adidas sliders. Not only a considerable fashion faux pas in my world, but on the practical scale, wildly inappropriate footwear for the journey we were about to embark upon.

A brief thought flickered across my mind about turning the car around but it didn’t feel right, there was a moment of tension, but the answer came into my consciousness just as fast as my realisation about the sliders. I would walk barefoot.

The National Trust car park is hard and stony. I could literally feel the vulnerability through the soles of my feet and my gait started to become tense. But then I remembered — I'm fighting a feeling of connection to the earth. So I slowed down, relaxed, and the discomfort subsided immediately.

Ten minutes later we reached the steep descent from the top of the valley at Haresfield — gorgeous views across to Randwick and way out to the Severn, birdsong all around — and I really did feel more connected than usual. Half way down the path as it begins to flatten out, just before we reach what I imagine as the rabbit glade, PING — something sharp penetrated the sole of my foot. I reflexively jumped onto my other foot and glanced down to see a dry holly leaf dangling from my left foot. It all happened so quickly, but I found myself laughing, saying hi to the holly leaf as I removed it and carrying on after Kiko with a big smile on my face. I think I would have usually emitted an expletive quite automatically, but this time the whole experience was light and joyful.

And I could only think of the relationship between vulnerability and connection.

This wasn't a new thought. It had come to me a week earlier, whilst treating a client for back pain..

They had previously confided in me that their reputation and image in the eyes of others — as a capable teacher, exhibiting proficiency and expertise in their chosen field — is hugely important. Chronic pain in the lower back had become a cause for inner turmoil, for fear, for a self-image under siege and a loss of self-esteem. The tissues were imbued with strength and vigour, physical capacity readily palpable, but the body felt guarded. A clear hesitation toward relaxation, and a desire for control. And yet underneath, an underlying relaxation was ever present — a yearning to let go being slowly remembered, steadily manifesting.

It was in those moments that it became so clear and so obvious to me. To relax thoroughly is not only to be in a state of total vulnerability. To relax thoroughly is to be in a state of deep connection and of trust — not just with the presence of others, but with presence itself. A state of conscious connection to the immediate environment, and possibly beyond.

Vulnerable. Connected. Descriptions of the same contact, but from different perspectives of consciousness.

Vulnerability can and has been viewed as a weakness of character. Susceptible to emotional turmoil, perhaps inner pain, a neediness toward others to simply get by. A sign that independence is lacking. As a male — and I use that term to encompass both the states of boy and man — I recall moments of choosing not to show pain. Not merely to hide its presence, but a choice to not take a certain path. Looking back, it was a choice to walk a path of increasing independence, a path of solo strength, and perhaps of diminishing empathy.

Most of us are likely inhabiting one of those perspectives — vulnerability or connection — but the truth I realised in those moments was one of non-duality. One and both at the same time. To be vulnerable is to be connected — to others, to life, to a greater consciousness.

The holly leaf confirmed it.

How many of us don’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable, in our friendships, in our intimate relationships? To feel more connected, we may need to soften the guards, the facades of strength and order and perhaps let a little more of our vulnerability allow others to connect on a deeper level.