In our latest Lobas Circle (loba means female wolf in Spanish) which we lead with my friend Judit, who is also a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, these were the two topics we sniffed around. Authenticity. And vulnerability. And I’d like to share some soul-food with you that might inspire you to continue your self-journey.

Such inward journeys are never easy. We might need to bring long-time forgotten stuff into the light of our consciousness, and it definitely won’t feel nice.

But maybe being authentic doesn’t mean to be nice. Maybe it doesn’t mean to be perfect, it doesn’t mean to hide our emotions and feel ashamed because a lonely tear slips down on our face for whatever reason (and so on).

Following this path, authenticity maybe is nothing more and nothing less than embodying our own softness, our sweet and sour vulnerability, whatever it takes.

And yes, sometimes it hurst to feel. To get out and make ourselves visible, make ourselves heard, occupy all those space our body needs to fill in to exist. Stretch out. And breathe. Yes, with the breath, we are opening up: we are reconnecting with whatever is blocked, whatever doesn’t want to be felt, spoken about, taken care of, faced.

Still, there is no other way. We are the path, our body-mind-spirit unity, our emotional embodiment and integration, our letting go, our ever-moving breath.

There are wonderful talks on authenticity and vulnerability, you might know well enough Brené Brown, but today I bring you two other persons who might guide you one step further. Who might dry one little tear up. Or open you up for more.

Dr. Gabor Maté is a well known psychologist (with Hungarian roots), and he has essential talks, especially on addiction issues. In this short episode he explains one heart-warming story of a friend of his, who learned to be authentic on the hard way. Well, actually, I don’t think there is an easy way. Because authenticity goes hand in hand with vulnerability, self acceptance, courage to face things, letting go, forgiving (first of all to ourselves), and many-many more things that help us to become those persons we’ve meant to be.

The other gift I’d like to share with you, is a poem from the amazing poet David Whyte, and his poem Vulnerability. You can listen him reading it here:

Vulnerability is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without, vulnerability is not a choice, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding undercurrent of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others. More seriously, in refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

To have a temporary, isolated sense of power over all events and circumstances, is a lovely illusionary privilege and perhaps the prime and most beautifully constructed conceit of being human and especially of being youthfully human, but it is a privilege that must be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones who do not share our untouchable powers; powers eventually and most emphatically given up, as we approach our last breath.

The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.”

David Whyte: vulnerability – in: Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words 

Especially in this time of the year, when the veil is thin and we are closer to all that we have lost, all that we fear; let’s embrace our beautiful, vulnerable and sensitive hearts. To feel is the only way through emotions: but once they are “felt”, they will be gone soon. This is their nature.

We can light a candle. We can go trick and treat. We can stay home watching a lovely movie. It doesn’t matter. What matters is to staying true to our volnerable, authetntic, beautiful being.