Coming out of hiding: On being vulnerable

If you examine my blog, you will notice that I haven't been very consistent in my postings. I want to share the reason. After I posted in October, a dear friend in California read my blog and told me that my writing revealed a lot about me. Actually, that freaked me out quite a bit! I told Michel (my life partner) that I didn't want to reveal myself to my readers. So I stopped writing.

Recently, though, I was told, both by my higher self/soul and by an astrologer, that I have spent most of my life hiding, and the time had come for me to stop. So writing my blog has become a way for me to open up to myself and to my readers, to be willing to reveal those things I have kept hidden so that I could maintain the facade I have carefully constructed all of my life.

Since breaking my ankle, I have been reading one of Wayne Dyer's books Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to Be Free. This book has been the perfect companion for me as I have lots of time to read, digest, think, and begin to put into practice what I am reading. Last night I came across this passage on page 204:

What exists within you is not some kind of hideousness that needs to be lied about. There is nothing imperfect about you that requires you to create a whole world of deception in order to make you worthy in the eyes of others. There is a loving presence residing within you. It is as perfect as Michelangelo's David, just waiting for you to allow it to emerge.

Isn't it amazing that many of us have had the idea that if anyone was to truly know us, they would despise or hate us? They would discover how _____________ (put any scary or derogatory term in the blank) we really are! So we spend our lives creating masks that hide the truly marvelous beings we are just so we can be who we think others want or need us to be.

I am determined this year to remove my masks. I have to admit I feel fear typing the previous sentence. That idea of being hideous in the depths of my being is a belief that I am going to have to work on!

Of course coming out of hiding does mean that I will be vulnerable. I looked up the word vulnerable and it comes from a Latin word meaning to wound. When I am vulnerable, I am opening myself to the possiblity of being wounded or hurt by others. However, who or what really gets wounded? I believe my higher self/Soul is incapable of being hurt by another human being or by any experience that happens during my life. My higher self/Soul is sacred, eternal, and unconditionally loving. So when I get wounded or hurt, it really is my ego/false self, that illusion I have created, that suffers pain from the words and actions of others or from the situations life presents. And it is those very hurts that provide me the opportunities to chip away what is unauthentic and dishonest to emerge as my honest and authentic self.

So the choice is mine (as usual): I can continue to create the masks and the illusion of who I want others to believe I am or I can decide to come out of hiding, be vulnerable, and learn to reveal my authentic self. When I consider the first option, I think of the now famous Dr. Phil question--"How's that working for you?" Since my answer is "Not very well!", I choose the second option. After all, what do I have to lose except something that is not and never has been real anyway.

Take care in gratitude!
--Vicky :o)