Vulnerability

To share or not to share, that is the question.

The first week I arrived in Kiev, I attended a seminar called "Schema Therapy," which theorizes that people hurt themselves and others due to core needs not being met in themselves, which leads to developing schemas and ways to cope with the unmet needs.

Well, I'm reviewing my notes from that seminar, and I realize how much I've coped in my life, instead of actually getting the need met.

The focus of Schema therapy is to teach people to stop coping and to learn to be vulnerable.  This is the only way one we can truly and consistently get our needs met.  By acknowledging our need in a way that invites others to meet them, we have a great chance of those needs actually getting met.  It's so much better than trying to cope without them, isn't it?

Imagine trying to cope without food or water or AIR!  How long will that last?  Even though emotional needs are less obvious or tangible than the above mentioned, they are every bit as vital to the health of the individual.

You've heard of the saying, "Hurt people hurt people," right?

I'm learning to accept that I have emotional needs, and that these aren't bad or wrong.  It's actually responsible and mature of me to ask for my needs to be met in a vulnerable way, so that others have the choice to meet them, and I have the satisfaction of having them met.  Then I can actually see that people do love me and care about me, because I let them see how they can help me.  And they do!

I think I've resisted true vulnerability because I've had the crazy idea that people should know what I need.  (Yeah, you're supposed to read my mind, right?)  Then, since people aren't meeting my needs when they should know them already, I think it means they must not want to, so why would I be stupid enough to ask for help when I'm already facing rejection and abandonment?

Now I'm realizing that I've been flashing a blank street-sign and expecting people to know which way to turn.  No wonder there have been so many accidents at my intersection!!

I'm very excited to dig deeper into the ways I've been coping, so I can let them go.  And am grateful for every opportunity (as scary as they have been) to practice being vulnerable, to express my needs, and give my friends a chance to really be there for me.  I do need my friends...now, more than ever.

Thank you God, for these painful-but-liberating lessons.  Keep 'em comin'!