Vulnerability and Evolution

Vulnerability the door to intimacy with reality
Vulnerability the door to intimacy with reality
Brene Brown, Pema Chodron and other innovators help us to realise the power of vulnerability 

Psychotherapy is learning how to relate more effectively with Life. Evolution is Life learning to relate in more effective ways. Over time species have adapted by becoming more varied, intelligent, resilient, perceptive and cooperative. This has required becoming more open and responsive to the flows of information, energy and matter. In the process of becoming more responsive to changing demands, species have increasingly become less armored and brutish and more vulnerable and sensitive. Humans have evolved sensitive protuberances such as unclawed finger tips, sensitive (and sensual) lips and ears; noses that if bumped bring tears to our eyes, and eyes in the front of our head, leaving our backs vulnerable to attack. It is our sensitivity that enables us to relate more intimately with whatever or whomever we come into contact with. Standing upright has exposed our hearts and soft underbellies to the world. Women’s sensitive breasts and men’s penises protrude forward into the world––increasing our sense of vulnerability even more.

To deal with this vulnerability our intellects have developed sophisticated means of manipulating the natural world. All technology is designed to help us feel safer and thrive in challenging and varied environments. All of our tools, technologies and infrastructures can be thought of as extensions of our bodies and minds. They make it easier to live, but our dependence on them makes us even more vulnerable. Not only can our bodies be damaged, but also if the extensions of us––shelters, vehicles and communication, water and sewage and agricultural tools––are compromised in any way, our lives come under threat. What would happen if our urban electricity or water systems were shut down for a mere month? The wider we extend our web of relating to the world, the more robust and complex interdependent system we create, and the more vulnerable we become; and therefore the more sensitive we need to be in caring for ourselves and one another.

Emotional Experience

As humans we emotionally experience the world through our hearts and our guts. We have an amazing ability to not only emotionally interpret our own experience, but standing upright with our vulnerable hearts and guts facing the world has given us the ability to feel other people’s emotions. Our ability to empathise might be the most sensitive protuberance we have. On a more subtle level we are able to project our sensitivity to another person and sense what an experience is like for them. With the people, animals and things we are most closely associated to, we tend to do this without any effort. Who hasn’t felt their heart ache at someone else’s misfortune? Or what parent hasn’t felt their guts churn when they see their child fall and hurt themselves? Our ‘compassion’ enables us to act ‘with love’. Love is essentially remembering we are all part of the same web, and feeling our interconnectedness with it. All behaviors either enhance the quality of the connection to the web of life, or they detract from it. Our vulnerability allows us to receive more, and higher quality, information from the world we live in. This information feeds back to us how well we are relating to the other aspects of life. It is through improving the quality of our relating that we evolve towards our ideals; while taking more pride in our actions which leads us to develop our innate capabilities to their fullest.

Psychotherapy has the potential to provide a safe context in which people can feel safe enough to acknowledge their vulnerability and the wisdom it can reveal by becoming more intimate with themselves and each moment and aspect of their life. 

This is an adapted excerpt from Essential Wholeness, Integral Psychotherapy, Spiritual Awakening and the Enneagram

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