Wednesday, October 28, 2015

On Being Open and Vulnerable...

  Do you know what's really hard for me?  Opening up.... like really opening up.... like telling you things that are going on inside my head or my heart that I know might make you uncomfortable or that you might not agree with or that will make you look at me in a different light.  It's not like I am a completely closed off person.  I have friends, I get along with people.  I know how to share enough of myself to make it possible for me to have relationships.  What I am talking about here are the more deeper parts of myself, maybe the more real-er (yes I know that's not a word!) parts of myself.  That's what is hard for me to share.
  Lately I've tried to become more open in putting myself out there....whether on here or with strangers and sometimes with friends.  Yet what I am finding is that a lot of the reasons why I hold back in sharing are actually valid.  The fears I have about people's response and what comes next in many ways have come true and I can't help but wonder is it my fault... is this is a self fulfilling prophesy.
  The more I try to open up, the more I feel like the world is putting its big giant hand over my mouth and telling me to "shut up" and "sit down".  It makes me want to stop, to turn back, to close up and not really let myself be fully available to the world around me.  I can live that way... it is possible... I've done it for most of my life.  But, shouldn't the other way be possible to. I mean shouldn't we be able to live open and real with each other, and experience all of life, because we are giving all of ourselves to life?
  I don't know, maybe I am being to idealistic.  Maybe I am fantasizing the whole thing...considering the truth is, to experience all of life you have to experience both the good and the bad, and as a human I only want the good.  And maybe it's just a "Me" thing, as so many other people in the world don't have a problem putting their selves out there no matter what. 
  In my mind I wonder if this is how God created me or is this just how the world is because of sin?  And as I Christian sometimes I feel conflicted because I know my identity is in Christ and in nothing else on this earth, yet I clearly allow the things of this world to matter (I mean even the very fact that I feel the need to include something about faith in this post for no other reason than it's what people expect, proves that).
  I don't know.  Maybe really what it comes down to is that it doesn't matter how the world responds to us, but rather how we respond to the world.  Maybe it doesn't matter if people tell us to shut up because if we know what we are meant to say, we will say it anyway.  Maybe I just need to learn to plug my nose and close my eyes and jump into the deep end, to hell with the consequences (if only that was actually my personality).
  I'll figure it out....eventually.  In the mean time I am going to keep trying....to keep trying to open up a little more and a little more...and to not allow people and things to get to me so easily.  If everyone else has the right to be real and say their say, well then maybe so shouldn't I....although, I definitely don't feel the need to be as forceful about it as some, so I'm going to take my time.  Hopefully I don't regret this....
 

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