"HOW TO PROTECT YOUR VULNERABLE HEART"

[Candy]

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR VULNERABLE HEART (From a letter to a friend)

“Your vulnerability is a gift, my love, of course. But please, offer it only to those who truly want it, tender it only to those who sincerely appreciate it and can offer their own tenderness in return, otherwise you will hurt yourself in the long run, and a kind of lonely, resentful despair will take root. Give your precious fragility to those who truly desire – and are willing - to step into a sacred field of deep listening with you, who want to work hard with you to create a safe, empathic, trustworthy and enduring connection. This will not happen overnight. It will take more than words. It will take time. Months. Years, maybe. Perhaps decades.

As you are learning, it’s easy to talk about vulnerability. It’s easy to say “I love you”, and speak convincing, uplifting, inspiring words about closeness, love, empathy, deep connection, and “sharing our hearts”. We feel good speaking these words and we want to believe in them. But words are meaningless, empty, unless they are proven in the crucible of connection. Let us not live in hope, and let us not merely pay lip service to the idea of closeness. True friendship, which is love, asks of us our blood, sweat and tears, and even “empaths” can have trouble with being empathic, as you are finding out.

Here is the truth: Some beings want your vulnerability and some do not. Some are willing to put in the work, and some are not. Some can handle your vulnerability, and some cannot, at this point in their lives, anyway. Some will say they want your truth and your love and your friendship, but are incapable of actually offering or receiving it. (No judgement here. We all can be more or less self-absorbed or narcissistic at different times in our lives, can’t we?)

At worst, those who do not want your vulnerability will ignore it, shame it, or blame you for feeling how you feel, needing what you need and thinking what you think. They will use your vulnerability against you, break your trust and break your heart, ridicule you for being how you are, even call you names. You will leave interactions feeling reduced, unworthy, unheard, unsafe. You may end up blaming yourself, but this may just be a sign that you need more protection from such a person, better boundaries, more space, less closeness.

Listen to your body.

Yes, if you listen to your body, you will learn who to open your heart to and who to distance yourself from emotionally and even physically. You will learn who is safe, and who is not, despite all the words. You will sense - energetically - who is truly ready and willing to receive the gift of your vulnerability, and who is not. Who truly wants your fragile, open heart, and who does not.

It’s okay to draw and redraw boundary lines over time. (Your boundaries are an expression of your power). It's okay to share more then to decide to share less. To open up, and to close down again as you gather new information and perspective. To take one step forwards… and two steps back. Love loves the opening and the closing too, the forwards and the backwards of the dance of intimacy. You do not have to be vulnerable with everyone you meet, and especially not when you first meet them. You do not have to share your heart – your truth, your thoughts, your feelings, your desires, your dreams, your hopes and your fears - until you feel ready, and you may never feel ready, and that’s okay. Don’t let anyone pressure you into opening up. You do not owe anyone anything at all. (And remember, you don’t have to share anything with me that you don’t feel safe to share, dear one. Anything at all, ever.)

Your vulnerability is a gift you can give to those who have proved they are ready, willing, and able to receive it. Sometimes you may have to learn through trial and error. You may feel you have shared too much, so you can pull back. Or perhaps you will find the courage to offer a little more vulnerability than before, and see how it’s received. You will spot patterns over time. You will see how someone responds to your open heart. You will not be able to see everything in the beginning. Hope and the mind’s fantasies of love can blind you. Stay connected to your gut. It will not lie.

When you find someone who can truly receive your vulnerability, over time, and can offer their open heart in return, rejoice! As you know, it is this safe, empathic, consistent and reliable relational field, this sacred space that accepts us exactly as we are, brokenness and all - in other words, the presence of God - that ultimately heals our deepest trauma.... whether you find this warm love in a friend… or a lover, a partner, a family member, a therapist, a healer, a pet, an imaginary figure of light, a two hundred year old tree… or in the deepest recesses of your own beautiful self….

So yes, your vulnerability is a precious gift, my love, but to whom are you offering it? Who has the maturity, courage, trustworthiness and strength to fully receive it, and consistently reflect it back to you? Who truly wants you, the authentic you, the unmasked you, the raw and unfiltered and imperfect you? Who simply talks about love and empathy and connection and family… and who actually does the hard work of meeting you, deeply listening to you, valuing and honouring you, in a real and embodied way? These are the questions you are being guided towards now, my love, as you rediscover your true worth…”

- Jeff Foster

[Hu****]

Thankyou so very much for this! Truly you have no idea just how much EVERYTHING just resonated with me! I'm truly speechless almost. I really have been, Inspite of having a large family, feeling quite alone lately. See I've only just recently more or less confirmed that I am highly on the "empath" spectrum. And having never known this about myself I've my whole life since a late teen pulled back from even family members at certain parts in my life. Then I kinda in my late 20s really messed up on drugs around the time my mother passed and things with my family have never really recovered. Now at 41 and three years clean I'm so desperately trying to mend relationships which hasn't been easy at all. And nothing in particular lve done wrong by them (though I did plenty) or any real outstanding resentments either way, it's just been so hard reconnecting and I just know at least with certain family members they would like this I so strongly feel. It's just become so complicated I guess. Anyways lol it did mention here not to open up to people especially ones you don't know lol, just wanted you to know how truly timely, I guess even synchronisticaly, this found me. Thankyou so much I feel like just showing my family this letter and let it stand! Lol. But I know it's on me I know to earn much and this I believe, I know! kinda got me to realise I've been going about this in such a wrong headed way. So again thankyou! All the best in the world!

[Candy]

@HumanbeingI am so so glad this letter found you and resonated with you as it did with me. My hope when sharing this was that someone out there would want to hear this and take what they need from it.

This is a safe space, and you're most welcome to open up to any degree you feel comfortable

Congratulations also on your sobriety! I know how hard that journey is and I commend you for your bravery.

The person who wrote this letter, Jeff Foster, is a wonderful teacher and I highly recommend his books and teachings.

I wish you all the very best too and remember, always follow your heart ❤️

[Li****]

@Candy - thank you for sharing this letter, and @Humanbeing - thank you for sharing a bit about your story and how the letter resonated with you. ?
It can sometimes be equally inspiring to read how a certain text or topic made someone feel as reading the actual text itself. This is indeed a safe space, and sharing and opening up can be such a great experience too. ? 

[Candy]

WHAT IS MEDITATION? By Jeff Foster

Meditation is not about getting yourself into altered states. Altered states do not last. It’s about becoming intimate with this state – this present moment, this day, this Now, its textures, tastes, vibrations, contractions and aches.

Meditation is not an out-of-body experience. It’s the opposite. It’s a full experience of the body and its ever-changing sensations, its amorphous clouds of shivers, tickles, undulations and pulsations, throbbings, fizzles, its pain and its pleasure, its opening and closing, its ever-changing form.

Meditation does not always make you feel “good”. In meditation, you feel exactly as you feel, and you learn to love that, or at least to allow it, or at least to tolerate it a little more than you did yesterday. Meditation makes you feel more like… you.

Meditation is not about getting anywhere. It’s about discovering that there is nowhere to get to. That you are already home, and your body is the ground of all grounds. It is about discovering true safety in the feet, in the hands, in the pit of the belly. It is about finding a sanctuary in your chest, a sacred shrine between your eyes, a loving friend in the breath, a mother in the motherless places.

Meditation is not something that you do with your mind. In meditation, the mind relaxes into the heart, seeking relaxes into finding, and even the most intense anxiety finds its home. You cannot make it happen, but you can fall into it.

Meditation is not for experts, or the ones who know. Meditation is for absolute beginners, those who are willing to face their present experience with wide open, curious eyes.

Meditation is a field of love, an ever-present ground of safety, presence and stillness, that you remember, or forget, or remember again.

Meditation never leaves you. It whispers to you in the stillness of the night. And even in the midst of an activated nervous system, a full-on panic attack, suffocating claustrophobia or the urge to get out of your body… meditation is right there, holding you, loving you, gently kissing your forehead, willing you on.

It will not abandon you, and ultimately, you will not abandon it.

And closing your eyes to sleep at night, meditation is there, snuggling right up to you.

Your soft pillow, the rising and falling of your own delicious breath, a light breeze coming in from the window, that billion-year-old sense of Being...

You are safe in your own body, my love. You are safe.

[wa****]

There's an old saying, "Meditation does not necessary leads to awakening, but awakening definitely needs meditation".

Meditation is therefore a tool. It's a tool that dissects the nature of things without the need for thinking. It's akin to a baby touching an apple and smile brightly as if he/she already knows it.

Meditation is a tool based on our inherent awareness. Our awareness is always been there and never left us - meditation itself told you that didn't it? And everyone has that awareness. So what's going on?

Meditation is simply the practice of wiping the dust off the clear mirror of our awareness.

 

[Candy]

THE WOUND IS THE DOORWAY

You are pure Awareness

with very human wounds.

You are indestructible Light,

untouchable and infinite, yes,

but you are also deeply sensitive, fragile,

a human with a tender heart

and unspeakable longings,

and more questions than answers.

Do not abandon yourself for the Absolute, friend,

but do not lose yourself in the relative either.

Just see them as One. God taking shape.

Non-duality dancing as duality,

as the deep mystery of the belly,

the throat, the genitals, the hot blood

and the yearning for home

and the search for union,

and the restlessness and the rest,

and the boredom and the joy of this ordinary life.

All form is sacred here,

since all form is formless here.

The relative is absolute in its holiness here.

Your pain is not an error here but a call to home.

Your sorrow is not a mistake but a movement of divinity.

And even your sense of incompleteness is complete, and your feeling of unworthiness has endless worth.

The old dream of perfection has crumbled.

The old myth of spiritual enlightenment has turned to dust.

The untouchable gurus with all the answers and no human flaws have been swept away.

Certainty has been destroyed by fire.

What is left to trust now

but the belly and the throat, the whistle of the kettle and the pitter-patter of rain hitting the roof, and the laughter of children, and the pressure between the eyes and the loneliness of evening, and the yearning for God and the simplicity of breathing.

The spiritual patriarchy is collapsing under its own weight.

The fear-based notions of how you “should” be.

The sad ideal of bliss and light and only positive vibes.

It has destroyed souls for too long.

A new spirituality is dawning.

One that allows for imperfection.

Healthy shame. Flaws. Not knowing.

Allows us to doubt. To feel sad. To break.

To be groundless yet know our ground.

To be Light yet love our darkness too.

To be Awareness yet maintain our humanity.

A spirituality not of opposites but of inclusion.

A spirituality of the feminine and the masculine working in harmony.

A spirituality of the breath, the dirt, the erotic, the taboo and the inconvenient, the impure and the unfinished and the unknowable.

A spirituality of you, as you are.

- Jeff Foster

[Le****]

Wow!  This resonated with me so very much.  Thank you for sharing. 

[Candy]

BREAK THE KARMIC CYCLE

When sadness or fear, anger or loneliness, shame or disgust surge through your nervous system, my love, do not believe for an instant that something is ‘wrong’ with you.

Instead, be honoured that these ancient friends have chosen to visit!

They have come not to hurt you but to heal you, to help you remember your wholeness, your vastness, your capacity for all life.

You alone have the courage to feel these feelings, let them pass through to completion, bless them with attention and curiosity!

Will you turn towards these inner children now?

Will you open your arms to the helpless ones inside?

Will you drench the sorrow, fear, loneliness and rage you feel now with love?

Will you break the karmic cycle with your breath?

- Jeff Foster

[wa****]

Karmic Cycle comes with a "comma", and breaks with a "full-stop".

So when does the "full-stop" comes?

..when you realized you are doing circles. LOL.

 

[No****]

when it comes to sadness i talk to my co-workers about it or i talk to the crisis or samaritans when i am angry i lost my mother recently and it was a shock the whole terrible thing about my mother news got me angry i started crying the news of my mother's death never sank in it made me feel angry a part of me died with my mother i need some medication on how to deal with my anger i hardly can't talk to my sister about the way i feel it is just the way i feel i need some help dealing with my anger and i want to be a better happy person with good things to live for

[wa****]

Everyone has their sad story.. their fear and their hurdles. Making the first step to truly face this person called 'I' was like stepping off a cliff into a dark abyss for me. The courage needed was amounted to facing death itself; my "legs" were shaking when I was "standing at the edge of the cliff".  I realized later that I don't have to do it that way. Slowly turning inward towards yourself and listen to whatever your heart has to say, embrace it no matter how difficult it is. You do not need to utter a word or do anything; just embrace it. The problem will eventually open up and you will cross it like nothing had happened; like waking up from a dream. More will come, each like a huge wall that cannot be circumvent or impossible to cross. But all, somehow, crumbled down with an open heart.

The breath only takes you to the door. It's up your heart to open it by letting go.

 

[wa****]

On 10/23/2020 at 12:01 AM, waihong said:

Karmic Cycle comes with a "comma", and breaks with a "full-stop".

So when does the "full-stop" comes?

..when you realized you are doing circles. LOL.

We started with sensation. Craving for happiness, we punctuated our actions with more commas. Hence the Karmic Cycle continues.

When we start to put aside our craving nonsense and embrace the sensation wholeheartedly, we begin to realize our completeness. And full-stops start running towards you, not by your comma actions.

The day will come, dwell in a middle path, an realization.

The realization is in the journey and not an end itself. But the cycle has stops its creation.

 

[Candy]

“Forget transcending your sadness, your longing, your heartbreak. Forget the disgusting lie of “permanent bliss”.

Weep yourself into the arms of the Beloved. Break yourself on Her altar.

Surrender, my love. Surrender to all of yourself, the divine and the muddy, the sacred and the shitty.

It is the safest thing of all, to let yourself be filled with anger, fear and sorrow, filled with LIFE.

To let these dear spiritual friends rise and fall in you like ocean waves.

Be penetrated by all that you fear.

Surrender to all that you run from.

And come alive...”

- Jeff Foster

[wa****]

To surrender is to let go.

 

To be alive is to stay true to this present moment; the person you are with, the things that you are doing. With no regrets when they are gone, as all are captured within your heart. This is the true meaning of letting go.

[Pr****]

I like this poetry, is the author on this platform?

[Candy]

@ProphetofLiberty I'm afraid he isn't. Jeff Foster is an author and spiritual speaker from England. You can find more info on his website. He's a wonderful guy and an amazing writer.

[Pr****]

@Candy thank you for this tip, I am interested mostly in science and spirituality. I'll definitely look him up.?

[Candy]

WHEN YOUR PATH IS YOUR FEET 

 

Take the step. 

 

Shiver, tremble, shake, vomit, wet yourself. 

Feel more fear than you've ever felt! 

 

But take the step. 
Or do not. (That’s okay too.) 

 

Either way, stand where you stand today.
This is all you need to know:
Stand where you stand today. 

 

Feel your feet in contact with this sacred ground.
Your presence sanctifies it. 

 

Let doubts surge. Let terrors surge. 
Let all the shaming and fearful voices surge. 
Bless all the surging ones. 
They cannot break you now
or knock you off your path. 

 

Nothing can knock you off your path. 
When your path is your feet. 
When your heart is the road. 

 

When you breathe in horizons.

- Jeff Foster (from “You Were Never Broken: Poems to Save Your Life)

[rc****]

I have a big house and what do you think is the best way to protect yourself and your property? Our neighborhood is too criminal.

[zy****]

vor 6 Minuten, schrieb rcnrlla:

I have a big house and what do you think is the best way to protect yourself and your property? Our neighborhood is too criminal.

What did your neighborhood do to your property since you live there?

[Ch****]

💘

[So****]

It seems to me that you should definitely put an alarm system and a very good one. I'm still looking for the perfect security system. But I really like ajax case, which I recently installed to see how it works. I've read a lot of positive reviews about it and as it turned out, it really works great and the most important thing is that all sensors can be bought separately and it won't strain you very much on the price. In addition, I found various configurations and you can choose them depending on what you want to secure