Latest / AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation / [EP37] Vulnerability: Your Greatest Strength

Transcript

[EP37] Vulnerability: Your Greatest Strength · AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation

• 0:00
  The courage to be vulnerable in love and life.
• 0:04
  And so I'll cover three areas.
• 0:06
  One is why vulnerability is hard or so hard for us, especially the strong independent people.
• 0:15
  What makes vulnerability powerful, not weak?
• 0:20
  Like why it's our strength and it's not a weakness.
• 0:22
  And some steps for us to deal with this, right?
• 0:30
  about it, to start opening up and to letting people in without losing yourself.
• 0:36
  So starting off the first part, which is why is this, why is it so scary? Why is vulnerability
• 0:41
  so scary? Because most of us, probably all of us, have somewhere in our timeline in the past
• 0:49
  where there has been hurt, like we've experienced hurt before. And we've learned that opening up
• 0:56
  meant being rejected or dismissed or abandoned or that we didn't get the result that we want,
• 1:04
  right, which was most likely love. Or secondly, we were taught to be strong, in quotes,
• 1:13
  self-sufficient or unshakable, which is, I would say, not an accurate definition of strength.
• 1:21
  when vulnerability felt like weakness and or maybe even danger, right? Or like over time,
• 1:29
  it felt like weakness or danger. And the third reason is that we feel losing control.
• 1:37
  So control obviously is there so that we can predict and the mind's being a pattern recognition
• 1:43
  machine. It wants to look at patterns and recognize when there needs to be a warning
• 1:52
  and that you need to be aware and basically not get hurt. Being vulnerable maybe meant being seen.
• 2:01
  And when you're used to protecting your heart and not being seen, not allowing love in,
• 2:07
  not opening up, it can feel scary or maybe even terrifying. And what does vulnerability really do?
• 2:15
  So vulnerability is the bridge between loneliness and connection. So it's how we experience love,
• 2:23
  not just a pretend type love or when people are performing and making it up. It's where we
• 2:30
  experience emotional safety when there is vulnerability in the dynamic. There's trust or
• 2:38
  a deepening of trust. And as we allow ourselves to get vulnerable, maybe with ourselves or in life,
• 2:46
  there's a deeper level of self-expression and also a sense of freedom. Like we just feel a
• 2:52
  level of freedom internally and in our lives and in ourselves so that we can express ourselves.
• 2:58
  And you cannot receive, you cannot fully receive love if you're only letting people see this kind of a put-together, curated, polished version of yourself.
• 3:10
  I know this firsthand.
• 3:12
  Been chipping away at my I don't need you wall or the wall of protection, which is the opposite of vulnerability.
• 3:19
  Letting people see the kind of the together version or the perfect version of ourselves.
• 3:28
  means that they cannot see the truth of who we are.
• 3:30
  Therefore, what they're responding and who they're responding to
• 3:34
  is a made-up version, not the real version, right?
• 3:37
  Like that we haven't shown to them.
• 3:39
  So how could they respond to that version?
• 3:42
  So real connection happens when we're able to or willing to
• 3:45
  show up raw, imperfect, and real
• 3:49
  so that other people can see us
• 3:53
  and the connection happens when they stay.
• 3:56
  So that is the hope.
• 3:58
  But that's where, that's the part we don't have control of.
• 4:01
  Vulnerability allows a healing in relationships,
• 4:05
  whatever the dynamic of relationship, intimate, non-intimate,
• 4:08
  family, friendship, whatever it is.
• 4:10
  It's a reclaiming of truth when we're vulnerable
• 4:14
  because we're allowing ourselves to go past the masks and the veneers
• 4:19
  and into a depth of rawness within ourselves.
• 4:24
  And while it may not feel like it in the moment,
• 4:28
  It might feel scary and during it, it might feel messy.
• 4:31
  But actually afterwards, we're left with a greater level of confidence within ourselves
• 4:36
  and courage.
• 4:37
  So afterwards, there is this sense of not bravery, but courage, because it takes that
• 4:43
  to open when we know we can't control the outcome.
• 4:48
  There is no guarantee that you would get hurt or not hurt.
• 4:53
  and so what is what are the steps and what are some steps that we can take
• 5:00
  one part is actually to look at obviously look within ourselves first before we start to look
• 5:06
  outside so as we're looking in to start to look at what what is it that i'm not facing what am i
• 5:15
  hiding away from within myself as in emotions and or emotional layers or in our work, in our
• 5:22
  body of work, we call it layers of the story, the mechanism of the story. The parts that I'm
• 5:28
  ignoring, running away from, not wanting to face that is uncomfortable or maybe just difficult
• 5:37
  that I know for myself, like sometimes there's this, I'll do it later. I'm aware of it. It's
• 5:42
  there. I don't want to go into it. I'll just do it later or next time, next opportunity. But right
• 5:48
  now, I'm just going to dig my heels in and let the wall be there. So starting with just getting,
• 5:55
  I want to say honest, but vulnerable with ourselves. I'd like to open up to ourselves
• 6:01
  and really get honest and look at, okay, this is difficult or this is scary or this feels
• 6:09
  unnerving and I want to run away or hide away or close down, shut down or put my walls up
• 6:18
  and be that person that has it together. So these are all kind of mechanisms.
• 6:25
  And then just looking at, I say looking at, but feeling into what is true. As you start to,
• 6:32
  it's like visually I'm thinking of it like as we're drilling down the layers or
• 6:35
  or I don't know, like an oil well that drills down the layers of the earth.
• 6:39
  So the first layers that you drill down might be, what can you be aware of?
• 6:43
  So maybe the first layers that you're aware of is, oh, I feel anxious, or I feel fear.
• 6:50
  And really acknowledging that, as I've said before, like seeing it as it is, not more, not less.
• 6:58
  So really starting to feel into it.
• 7:00
  And feel into it doesn't mean stay there and wallow in it, but acknowledge it.
• 7:05
  as it is and see it for what it is.
• 7:09
  And also then you can do this in meditation as well
• 7:12
  or in our work.
• 7:14
  A lot of times when we're doing the mini awakens
• 7:18
  and the check-ins and where the deep work is done
• 7:21
  in our body of work,
• 7:23
  I'm normally guiding someone through that process.
• 7:25
  Everyone gets to benefit from the process
• 7:27
  as I'm guiding someone, whoever is sharing.
• 7:29
  And most of the time, this is the feel part.
• 7:32
  It's actually going in and getting present
• 7:36
  some of the immediate layers first, getting present with the self, with ourself first,
• 7:43
  and the emotions and the emotional layers, and it will start to reveal dimensions of the narrative,
• 7:49
  right, that's been playing off in the mind that you're either unaware and it's been running
• 7:55
  to show your life, or you're somewhat aware or quite aware, but you haven't been able to do
• 8:03
  something about it yet. So this is the beginning of melting away by those layers, the healing
• 8:09
  process, getting present to the self by way of being vulnerable with ourselves. So it's like
• 8:18
  practice, you could say. It's not actually practice run because it's a healing process
• 8:23
  with the self, but it's like practice run for when we do it with someone outside of us,
• 8:29
  to anyone else. So the practice of being open and vulnerable and staying with, if it is difficult,
• 8:38
  staying with the difficult emotions, not because you want to torture yourself, but because
• 8:44
  you know that going through that terrain of what is difficult on the other side is the breakthrough.
• 8:50
  On the other side of the resistance, on the other side of the difficulty or the discomfort
• 8:54
  it is normally where the breakthrough is. So we're willing to actually go through that terrain,
• 9:00
  the landscape, the internal landscape, knowing that or in the hope that there is something on
• 9:07
  the other side. And normally there is, right? There is healing, there is transformation on
• 9:10
  the other side. So being vulnerable before might not feel like strength. During it might feel messy.
• 9:19
  but after it when the healing has occurred when there is a transformation in the dynamic in the
• 9:25
  relationship there is in what it causes is that it causes an opening to a giving and receiving of
• 9:32
  love so whatever the dynamic whether it's intimate or not a flow it opens to a flow of love so
• 9:39
  therefore that flow of love that connection brings about facilitates a healing to both or whoever is
• 9:49
  two people in that dynamic. Therefore, relationship gets healed. And then the other part of it is
• 9:57
  letting go of the attachment to the outcome, which I know in our work, we look at the Bhagavad Gita,
• 10:05
  which talks about now authorities and the actions we take, not the results. And as much as this
• 10:11
  mechanism that is trying to protect the cell wants a guarantee, wants an insurance policy, wants
• 10:19
  know that it's going to be safe, that it's not going to get hurt, that it's going to work out
• 10:23
  well, or the other person or people are going to stay, they're not going to leave when you're open
• 10:29
  and vulnerable. That is the part that we don't have guarantee of. And the more you train yourself
• 10:36
  to actually show up and practice the vulnerability, it's not a weakness, it's a strength, because it
• 10:43
  takes strength to choose, to be open, to be vulnerable, and to deal with whether the other
• 10:50
  person or people stay or not, whether they leave or stay. So therefore, allowing the result to be
• 10:57
  whatever it's going to be. And the point of it is not to be accepted by everyone. It is to stop
• 11:04
  abandoning ourselves. So by being vulnerable, we're actually being open to ourselves. We're
• 11:13
  ourselves, you've already won by choosing to be vulnerable, by choosing to be open, if there was
• 11:20
  a winning at all, right? Because you've honored yourself. You've not let yourself go, basically,
• 11:27
  and you haven't abandoned yourself, which is normally what we do when we close up and shut
• 11:31
  down and not let that dimension of life come in, love basically come in. So therefore, whatever
• 11:40
  the result is, it is a good result because you've grown in strength, right? Like you've chosen to
• 11:48
  open and that practice of opening up, whether you receive or whether you get the result or not,
• 11:55
  it is good in the long run, in the long term. And for anyone who's listening to this in the
• 12:02
  podcast or the YouTube videos or the recordings, if you don't know this and you're curious about
• 12:10
  going deeper or being guided, then little plug, on the 21st of April to the 27th of April,
• 12:17
  there's a little window where you can come in and trial our Elevate Premium membership for seven
• 12:22
  days for free. And once a month, we do this thing called Mini Awaken. And in Mini Awaken,
• 12:27
  we do interventions. I do interventions and healing with the group. And you can allow yourself
• 12:32
  to come and be guided if you want to work on this or these kinds of topics. So to summarize,
• 12:41
  is not a weakness, it's the most courageous thing we'll do because it's a choice. It's not a
• 12:49
  surrender. It's not a defeat. It comes from a place of choice, which is a place of strength.
• 12:58
  It's a place of power. It's not you've been victimized, right? Like you've chosen to open up.
• 13:04
  it requires that there is a certain capacity to be able to hold that situation,
• 13:12
  that dynamic to open up and to receive or to open up to receive.
• 13:17
  It's how we create love connection and a life that actually feels like yours.
• 13:25
  Because that's you being in the driver's seat of your life.
• 13:28
  because you've taken control of the parts that you actually have control of.
• 13:35
  Your actions, your part, and that's all we can take control of.
• 13:40
  That's all we can drive, basically.
• 13:43
  And the rest of it, it is going to be what it's going to be.
• 13:46
  Chances are, most of the time, or almost all the time, as far as I've seen,
• 13:52
  when someone's actually been vulnerable,
• 13:55
  even if they didn't get the results like immediately it went to the it went in a good
• 14:00
  way for them normally they get the result that they want and even when it didn't it good it turns
• 14:06
  out good for them but the ones that are shut down and closed down as a long-term strategy
• 14:14
  it never works it just results in years decades of maybe carrying anger resentment bitterness
• 14:24
  And suddenly you see people who are more advanced in their years, but they haven't actually developed.
• 14:31
  So they're just closed and sad or angry or just bitter.
• 14:37
  And there's something that's been eating up.
• 14:39
  And also then they're walled up as well.
• 14:42
  So it's our choice.
• 14:44
  And the people who have allowed themselves to open up, even if they don't get result that time,
• 14:50
  there are other times in the right time and place that they get the results that they want.
• 14:55
  A lot of times, maybe even better than they imagined that very first time.