🔥 LORENA 🔥

Deeply flawed

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What I’ve learned so far: discovering my vulnerability, expressing it, protecting it, prioritizing it. Yet, I find it more challenging to consistently prioritize it because I still find validation more stimulating—the peak of happiness I experience from validation—than the calmness of consistently prioritizing my vulnerability. This particular happiness reaches a peak, while the calmness is quite neutral in terms of emotional intensity. On the other side of the validation loop, for me, there’s only an ever-growing emptiness without intrinsic motivation. On the other side of the vulnerability loop, for me, there’s intimate, deep connection with myself, my surroundings, and others. I’m sometimes less aware when I’m choosing one over the other. My brain is still developing the ability to see the consequences of all my choices.

How can I ever prioritize a deep, vulnerable connection if I don’t prioritize my own vulnerability? The same goes for discovering my vulnerability, expressing it, protecting it, and prioritizing it. How can I discover another’s vulnerability in a connection, ensure it’s safe for them to express it, protect their vulnerability, and prioritize it? Let alone consistently prioritize it. I would have liked to have the ability to fully cherish vulnerability in myself and others. The gift of that vulnerability is indescribable to me. It seems to me the most beautiful thing to mutually give each other this gift—complete vulnerability. A well-developed, healthy adult mode in both seems minimally necessary to choose to fully receive and give such a great gift over and over.