Learning to Swim vs. Avoiding the Pool

A Note on Vulnerability

I bring this topic up upon a metaphor brought to my attention in the exact moment I needed it most today. If you are reading this, trying to grasp a perspective on something that you have been struggling with recently, I want you to think about toddlers for a moment. Toddlers around a pool unsupervised might raise concern. This is because that particular situation is doomed from the start. The brain of a toddler is not developed enough to make the conscious distinction between safe and unsafe, toddlers do not possess the same paradigms or judgement older humans learn through experience. They are very likely to just walk straight into the pool. If you weren't that toddler who accidentally fell into the pool without a floating device, it is still very likely you have experienced a similar situation. At a point in time, you once were vulnerable like a toddler. Maybe, you were vulnerable with a person or group of people, possibly naïve to a situation, and that person or group of people hurt you in some way. Or maybe you were vulnerable in life in some other aspect. Regardless the situation, we have all once been ignorant to a point of blissfulness, of course prior to learned knowledge on the subject.

Often times, when we experience the hard lessons, or fall into the pool, our minds immediately resort to the plan of action taken in order to never be unsafe again. If you were hurt by friends for example, you may subconsciously become reserved or put up a front so that you are never vulnerable again, never able to be hurt again. Now, when a toddler falls into a pool, does the toddler just avoid pools for the rest of their life? Or does the toddler learn how to swim?

Coming from someone who is particularly reserved at times, I am not saying that being reserved is a bad thing by any means. However, if you put up a fortification around you out of fear, in hopes that you will not be exposed enough to experience pain, it is true that you may never feel that pain again. If you are not vulnerable with anyone it is true that no one will be able to hurt you in that way. But, I can assure you that you will also never experience that same love or connection, you will never experience what it is like to swim. You will feel a disconnect from the people around you, and even when someone does try to express that love to you, it will be impossible to recognize or it will feel superficial because you will not be able to distinguish whether they love the real you or the front that you have put up.

I am learning that it is more beneficial to learn how to deal with the pain that comes with vulnerability, than to avoid it all together. There is a certain perplexity in the way that our brains naturally do everything in its power to try to keep us safe, try to drive us away from any negative feeling we have ever experienced. It has become clear to me though, that this can be limiting. It can restrict us from the ability to undergo some of the most beautiful things in life, like swimming.

So, I have made the decision to learn how to swim. To deal with the waves of emotion as they come rather than avoiding them all together. I invite you to do the same, to allow yourself to face a fear, go out of your comfort zone. This could be in terms of friends like I demonstrated, or maybe it is in terms of a new hobby, or maybe even your mindset around food. Whatever it is, I want you to try to be just a little bit more vulnerable with me. And I promise you, no matter how much it feels like it, you are not drowning.

Love to all of you readers out there, El.