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“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable. To make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.” ~ Crissi Jami

No, I don’t want to be mentally strong all the time. 

It’s daunting, stressful, and exhausting.

 I don’t want to constantly pressure myself into fulfilling ideals and expectations that were unrealistic, flawed, and disconnected from who I am to begin with.

I don’t want to feel the burden of not allowing myself to be vulnerable, broken, lost, and confused.

I don’t want to be the one who has it all figured out and can handle everything all the time. Because I can’t. And it’s not because I’m “weak.” It’s because I’m human.

For once and for all, I want to take off this robe of being “mentally and emotionally strong” and just be me.

A me who is lost, all over the place, scared, afraid of what’s to come, full of self-doubt, and utterly vulnerable.

A me who loses grip on his/her emotions and doesn’t know what to do with them.

A me who breaks a million times and pieces myself together every day.

We are all scared of being vulnerable, aren’t we?

We always push ourselves to be brave and strong. We don’t allow our emotions to flow out; we keep storing them till we can no longer hold them in, and they break all the barriers and just flow.

With a force and intensity that we just cannot understand and contain.

All because we were too busy denying ourselves the space we needed…because we were busy building walls—a façade of being strong so that we could hide our vulnerability.

Perhaps, we don’t realise that embracing ourselves—our vulnerability—requires the greatest courage we could ever muster up.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing. It’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s the greatest measure of courage.” ~ Brené Brown

Yes, being vulnerable hurts a lot.

It makes us feel scared and afraid—as if our entire existence is at stake.

Yet, it gives us the strength to get up and piece our self together again. In different ways…in ways that are more aligned with who we are and who we will be.

Being vulnerable and embracing our own vulnerability is a mark of being ready to evolve.

Just like a phoenix must turn into ashes before it can rise again, we need to open our hearts to our own selves, look at our deepest fears, insecurities, and hurts so that we can release them.

And that’s how we rise.

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.” ~ Neil Gaiman