To expose our wounds to people we care about – the icky stuff, the ego stuff, the personal growth edges we’re working on that we haven’t yet mastered – is super vulnerable. Letting others see our “big ugly tails” (hat tip to my dear friend Amy Ahlers, who has seen my big ugly tail and trusted me enough to let me see hers) tends to trigger all our core fears of rejection and abandonment, of withdrawal of love. But to bear witness to someone’s wound is a privilege and an opportunity to deepen the relationship beyond the idealistic views we might have of each other into the real truth of both our light and our shadows. This doesn’t mean it’s anyone else’s job to baby our “owies.” But when we’ve exposed our vulnerable wounds to those we care about – and asked, but not expected them to tread gently around our wounds, we have a choice. We can poke needles into each other’s wounds – because now we know them and dang it, it’s their dark stuff to work on. Or we can choose to put salve on the wounds of those we love – not codependent salve that enables the wound, but more like a gentle touch with lavender oil to make something stinky smell a bit sweeter and to acknowledge the vulnerability and handle it gently. When we have been vulnerable enough to expose those wounds – and own them – and when we then ask those we love to be gentle with our wounds – and they choose to do so – it starts to feel like love. As Brené Brown writes about in Daring Greatly, intimacy is like a jar of marbles. The more we expose our vulnerabilities – and someone handles our sensitive spots gently, the more marbles we gather in the jar. Trust grows as the jar becomes more full of marbles. But when someone betrays that trust or chooses to stick needles in the wounds of our vulnerability, we lose marbles in the jar. If someone uses our vulnerability against us, we may feel like dumping out the whole jar of marbles. Over time, the strength of the relationship is based on how many marbles are in the jar. If we illuminate a big ugly tail of someone else, we may be tempted to judge that person, to think less, to criticize, to demean, even to reject the person whose big ugly tail we’ve seen. But wouldn’t it be kinder if we treated them gently and with compassion? When someone exposes his or her big ugly tail to you, or when you see your own, this calls for a big, beautiful dose of love, kindness, and abundant compassion. Beating yourself up – or going on the attack with the person whose big ugly tail you’ve witnessed – only deepens the vulnerable wound and leads to fewer marbles in the jar. Instead, seeing big ugly tails – in others or in ourselves – is an opportunity to deepen trust and intimacy with others – and learn how to unconditionally love and accept ourselves, even those parts of ourselves that lead us to feel the poisonous emotion of shame. When your big ugly tails are illuminated, there’s nothing you have to do to “fix” them. Big ugly tails do the most damage when we’re blind to them, and they can inadvertently swat around and hurt people without our awareness. We may leave shrapnel in the wake of our big ugly tails, and once you realize this, you may feel even more motivated to hate your big ugly tail, rather than treat it with loving compassion. But here’s the thing. Once we see our big ugly tails, they automatically start to shrink in the light. Like spooky shadows that disappear when the floodlights flip on, our big ugly tails, once seen, start healing themselves, just like our bodies do when we feel loved and accepted, in spite of our darkness. So please, dear ones, be gentle with your big ugly tail, and be gentle with those of others as well. Together, with love and compassion, we can heal.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:20:39 +0000
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