Thought for the Week: Connection

Ken Orchard writes about learning to accepting and embracing our vulnerability

One of the commonest big questions that people ask is: ‘What is the meaning of life?’ I think they’re asking the wrong question. This question presupposes that in the beginning there was a meaning and that life came about in order to fulfil that meaning. I think the question needs to be turned on its head, because I believe that life came first and it’s down to us to find meaning in it.

So, if I’m right, the more accurate question is: ‘What gives life meaning?’ And, for me, the answer to that question is ‘connection’. It’s in our connections that we find our spirituality – primarily in our connections with others and with ourselves, but there are other important connections as well, such as those with nature, with music and with art. These points of connection are the places we are most likely to find our God.

All our fears are ultimately about lack of connection. Even shame is a fear that if other people see us as we really are they will decide we are not worthy of connection. So, we hide. We hide the parts of us that we believe are unacceptable; but, actually, we cannot selectively hide bits of ourselves. If we try to hide the bits we believe are unacceptable, the bits we class as negative, we break our connections and end up hiding the positive qualities as well. It is this very belief that we are not worthy of love and connection that prevents us from finding it.

However, there are some people who have actually come to believe that they are good enough. They’re not necessarily any better than anyone else, but they have developed an acceptance of and a compassion for their own imperfection. They have been able to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be the person that they actually are. People who have good connections have them as a direct result of this authenticity.

But to accept our imperfection and to reveal the bits of ourselves that we find distasteful requires us to accept our vulnerability, which is extremely countercultural in our success-driven society. We have developed a range of tools to keep vulnerability out of our field of vision, one of the primary tools being certainty. We feel more comfortable and secure if we have certainty. We display certainty about our religions, about our life choices and about our opinions.

If we are to find the connection that we all seek, then we need to find the courage to let go of our certainty and allow our vulnerability to show itself. We need to stop trying to control, stop trying to understand and stop trying to predict. We need to be prepared to sit with the fear of not knowing. We need to be prepared to sit in that vulnerable, uncomfortable place.

For most of us this sounds truly scary, but it is only when we allow ourselves to be really seen – warts, vulnerability and all – that real connection, real intimacy, becomes possible.

We need to learn not only to accept our vulnerability but to embrace it. We need to see that it is our very vulnerability that makes us beautiful. When we see that, we will find that vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging and love.

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