Vulnerability- a comic

So much blogging this week! Hopefully you're not sick of me.

Vulnerability is a hot topic for me and something I've been thinking a lot about. But for a while, I was avoiding thinking about it, to the point that I checked out Brene Brown's Daring Greatly twice, and each time I returned it to the library without reading it. (Still need to check it out again... and read it this time.)

But I know I wasn't as happy as I could be. By closing myself off, I wasn't happy. I wasn't fulfilled. And I think that's partly why I had such a bad year in 2013. I separated myself. Didn't allow others in. Which kept m heart safe, but totally and utterly deflated. So when I found this comic a while ago, I knew it was something I wanted to share. But since I wasn't in the best place emotionally, I still didn't really want to think about it. I didn't want to consider its impact on me.

The guy illustrated the following C.S. Lewis quote:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

And for the comic itself:
http://zenpencils.com/comic/103-c-s-lewis-to-love-at-all/

Whew! Powerful stuff.

But on a happier note, I'm allowing myself to be a bit more vulnerable. Just a little bit. It's still terrifying. I still hate it. But it also is making me happier. To know that people still love and care for me, even when I am being vulnerable and showing uglier sides of myself. And by being vulnerable with the right people, I actually feel safe. Safer than I was when I kept my heart locked up. And it is slowly making Boise more of my home.