Let Your Vulnerability Speak and it’ll Tell You How to Find Your Strength
The sun finally declared ownership over the mid July sky after three weeks of rain. I took to the streets of Zurich town, to sit in Lindenhof garden where green-washed spires look on with a gruff indifference.
A few steps before my destination a fluttering shawl enveloped at my attention.
A plump woman. Sixty centimetres tall. Clasping her hands in front of her mouth which was open in excitement, or frightened surprise.
The Swiss artist, Denise, and her True Emotion ladies in clay want to expose their vulnerability and let it speak. On top of each lady’s head a small figurine gives full embodiment of the deepest feeling.
The one in the gallery window sat doubled over, her hands gesturing either despair or simply taking a break.
That is the nature of our vulnerability — it’s layered and malleable. And if you let it speak it will tell you not only how it can make you crack and break but mostly how you can become stronger and reach your belonging.
My art is the invisible one, where the hands of awareness using feelings and body motions to flesh out that raw potential that can be made into any form you feel to be your true expression.
Daria, who I’ve been working with for the past three months, was astonished to see this happening to her
.
She’d always found it difficult to make decisions. As an expat, she was filled with questions about the next steps in her life. She’d never had any coaching or therapy, and wasn’t sure she even needed it. But knowing me from courses and workshops she thought of giving it a try.
Her partner is excited about buying an old property and restoring it as a project. But when he suggested they go and look at a potential house, she said to me: “I felt a belly ache.”
For Daria it’s just another agonising reminder that she hasn’t yet made up her mind about wanting to make staying in the country where they live her life-plan. She was worried about disconnecting her small children from their family. The heaviness of thoughts and doubt about not knowing what she wanted puckered her sense of self.
We started with a meditation. I asked Daria to pay attention to her body’s sensations. I wanted her to raise her awareness gauge so she could be more in touch with the hidden communication channel of her body.
There’s a different between the mind’s communication and the body’s. The mind is governed by habits, fears, beliefs and past experiences. The body is managed by the present moment, uncompromising self-truth, inner accuracy, sensitivity to nuances and unfiltered knowledge.
When you raise your awareness-capacity you create the conditions to discover something honest that goes beyond habits, fears and limiting beliefs.
When Daria was settled in her body I asked her to visit in her imagination that moment her partner suggested to go see the potential house project. She couldn’t feel the belly ache anymore.
[If this was relegated to a traumatic experience you would feel the same body sensation as in the moment of the overwhelming experience]
When I asked her if she could retrieve any thoughts or feelings from that moment she gave a big sign and said “I’m afraid of being stuck! That my kids will not have the network they need because we’re away from family. What if we’re not enough for them?!”
I invited Daria to give more space to the fear. Without trying to reduce it, silence it or shut it down.
Slowly the fear transformed into the sadness. Tears rolled down her face.
Being the one who distanced her children from their family was deeply saddening for her.
I invited Daria to give space for that sadness. After few moments another shift happened and the sadness became a sense of being vulnerable. Not just for her kids but for herself. More tears wetted her face.
This vulnerability felt like that small figurine on Denise’s clay-woman, emerging out of the depth as the full embodiment of something as source in the inner life.
We spent some time giving a lot of space to that vulnerability. Slowly Daria felt the tightness in her chest and throat loosening. She began to feel lighter. I then invited her once more to visit that moment when her partner suggested they go and see the house project.
And I asked: “Do you notice now, out of the intimacy with your vulnerability, that there’s something you’d like to express? Perhaps something you didn’t know you could or didn’t imagine you could say/do?”
After few moments of silent listening Daria’s vulnerability opened its mouth and said:
“I don’t know if I’m ready to make that decision!”
I asked Daria how does it feel to express it and in no time a thought tried to kidnap this gentle intimacy by saying “But when am I ever going to make a decision ?!”
We acknowledged the fearful thought. I repeated to Daria what her vulnerability said and asked her to pay close attention to any feelings or sensations she could pick up from her body.
Daria, as she said later, discovered her sense of agency. She couldn’t imagine that anything could come out of her vulnerability, let alone that it will feel like “I have some control over the situation”.
This inner strength for putting boundaries and making a decision in her own time also weakened her tendency to self-doubt. There was a strong sense of realisation in her body that this vulnerability spoke of something valuable and true to Daria.
In art — whether you create with clay, words, children, cooking or awareness — you cannot fake. The real art is to bring to light the truth of the moment that already resides within.
If you’re dealing with some form of vulnerability or facing some challenging feelings and life-questions I’m confident I can help you.
To see if we connect well together I offer a free (from pressure or charge) call to explore further what’s on your heart and what I can offer you.
There’s one spot left for the summer.
There will be more opportunities from September. But if you feel that you can’t do more by yourself than what you’ve already tried, if you resonate with that desire to find that source of inner strength within you, now rather than later — I welcome you to a free get-together call.
You can schedule it by clicking this button
Shelly's helping women who live a connected & engaged life to heal old wounds, deepen their self-trust so they can be an authentic expression of themselves.
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Denise's True Emotion exhibition organised by Christina Hiltscher at Galerie am Lindenhof
Photo by Aiony Haust on Unsplash
