The art of being vulnerable

We bleed inside, into the substance of our being, and we interpret our wounds by using our earthly language. But wounds are created in silence, in the language of the soul.

Vulnerability is our soft spot in humanity, our Achilles’ heel, inviting us into the ‘otherness' of ourselves, into a complementary version of us, where a beam of light leads to our darkness. But we are desperately trying to hide our weaknesses, becoming opaque to ourselves, because vulnerability is the one that makes us lose control, ache, think erratically, behave uncontrollably, and get ourselves hurt. If we allow ourselves to become vulnerable until the very end, we have the chance to love. The true, pristine, naked love.

This is that kind of love that presents itself as the most beautiful breaking of our senses.

Nowadays, everybody is trying to be strong, and vulnerability is seen as the opposite of strength. In fact, nothing is more than that!

But vulnerability allows emotions to flow, despite the risk of being hurt.

My favourite kind of vulnerability is to be seen in art. The vulnerability allows an inner openness to occur as the best avenue toward our wounded self, promoting an indignant melancholy, an unapologetic fury, and a pervasive atmosphere of unprocessed feelings that trouble the sky of our mind, bleeding into our soul. An artist cannot achieve the unimaginable, the peak of their dreams, relying only on their talent or perseverance.  Without the intrusive intervention of pain, art will be an empty shell, mathematically organised in silence. Art without vulnerability will be a brain fart😊

This type of journey into vulnerable things can be rather unpleasant, requiring a brazen attitude, and it will certainly destabilise our emotional sovereignty. The morphology of vulnerability comprises many dimensions: the brokenness of love, grief, and disappointment, which create an armour of self-compassion and generosity.

Emotions possess the evanescence of a musical note. The art of containing your own vulnerability without the subterfuge of avoidance or judgment will cultivate a revelatory part of the self that illuminates our neurological and psychological nature, helping us understand why we feel what we feel and how that shapes what we become.

Vulnerability is an instrument of kindness in a tormented world, a torch totally overlooked, misunderstood, and sometimes loathed, especially by the masculine part of the world that lives in fear of not being weak and losing the sense of their masculinity. If we step back, the bravery that every man longs for does not lie on the battlefield, but in the very core of vulnerability, where awareness grows, sharpening our inner attention on both sides of the skin that membranes the self. That softness of vulnerability creates a carcase of empathy, engagement, patience, and self-compassion that supports incremental changes in our consciousness related to the unclenching part of our story, holding out to the world the open palm of curiosity.

All the substance of vulnerability carries the truth that, beyond the constructed idea, there is the world itself, the soul of it, with all the beautiful fissures, crevasses that are able to transform ourselves and move into another geometry of feeling, where accepting and embracing adversities is the only way to transcend ourselves and return to the core of things.

Vulnerability does not omit; it commits to the inner self with crucible creativity that helps us find beauty in uncertainty and dwell in discomfort. The best place for vulnerability to manifest is music.  In music, fragilities become choruses, daring riffs or blues innuendos. Without vulnerability, music appears like an infidel who elopes with the sound erratically, without the capacity to move the world or be truthful. The art of being vulnerable consists of penetrating the poetics of fragility until we reawaken our soul in our sublimated form and unearth uncommon feelings of awe. Vulnerability is the art of touching wounds with care and presenting them to the world in the shape of a universal sigh. And when it dwells in music, it attracts angelic forms of light, the ultimate expression of everythingness.

Let’s take Nick Cave’s music, which travels in the depths of our soul, churning the unseen, and invite it to step into the light, like in an altar of pain. The beauty of vulnerability lies in making love with your pain and transforming it into luminosity; lacking the opportunity to practise vulnerability will make the audience aware of the song, but not of the singer who carries all the tearing swellings of the human heart.

Therefore, the art of being vulnerable represents the kingdom of all possibilities, where the wilderness of the mind expresses itself majestically through frailty.    

The ethos of vulnerability is rooted in the unconscious mind, making it the best manufacturer of epiphanies. Because vulnerability is nothing but the valve between ourselves and the world, through which reality inundates the chamber of our being and pours out art. Without vulnerability, the world will be a perfect place with no preoccupation to shine.

 Therefore, in the face of your own actuality, reconsider the preconceptions of the world and invite your thought that there is strength in vulnerability and vulnerability in strength.

Vulnerability is a wound with a hug. Be vulnerable, for without it, there is no art or love!