Opening to Vulnerability with a Kind Heart
Do not say that kindness and awareness are separate. One cannot arise without the other. Awareness is the foundation of kindness. Kindness is the expression of awareness.
— ANONYMOUS
A dear friend of mine was once living in Ibiza, Spain, with her beloved longtime partner. They were approaching their retirement years and almost finished building their dream home, where they longed to spend the rest of their days together. Then out of the blue my friend sensed something was not right with her body. After several rounds of tests, she was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. She had to leave their island paradise to get immediate surgery in Madrid, followed by a year of intensive chemotherapy and radiation. Then, while taking a stroll in the city, her partner was tragically killed by a drunk driver.
Within a year, my friend’s life was ripped apart. She was still fighting her cancer and receiving chemotherapy, and she had lost her husband and soul mate. Their dream of retiring and living a pleasant life in Ibiza had been snatched away. She did not know where to turn. She was in pain and disoriented and now had to face her difficulties alone. Even though she had an active spiritual practice, she needed tremendous courage to meet all of that heartache and loss with a kind heart. It took her a long time to pick up the pieces of her life again.
To be human is to be innately vulnerable. There are thousands of illnesses in the world today, but we only have effective treatments for some of them. We are also subject to a host of environmental dangers, such as famine, drought, earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, and more. In the United States alone, more than sixteen million children go hungry each year. We also face societal challenges like unstable economies, civil unrest, warfare, and poverty, which affect billions of people worldwide. Every day, people lack or have limited access to basic necessities like healthy food, sanitation, and clean water. And people suffer from a range of social pain, from domestic violence to racism, incest, and homophobia, just to name a few.
We are also vulnerable to mental and mood disorders, addiction, and the cognitive decline that comes with aging. If that weren’t enough, we inflict more pain on ourselves through self-judgment and self-hatred. Up to 10 percent of the U.S. population is on some kind of mental health medication, but this fails to solve the dilemma. Suicide rates, an expression of many people’s inner struggles, are also increasing; suicide is now the tenth leading cause of death in the United States.
However, perhaps the most vulnerable place for human beings is our heart. We are social creatures. We have strong needs to be loved and cared for. As infants, healthy bonds of attachment to caregivers are essential for our survival. As adults, healthy social connections and friendships are important for our mental health. Such meaningful contact is even more vital for our well-being as we grow older. Yet how easily can others harm us emotionally. We can quickly be hurt, rejected, ridiculed, shamed, or shunned. Further, our social connections are ultimately transient; they are all subject to the winds of change and loss.
How do we find peace in our heart given all these challenges and the inherent vulnerability of the human condition? When we meet painful experience, it is crucial that we do so with kind attention and self-compassion. This is the potential of mindfulness practice when imbued with kindness. It supports us as we meet each person, each vulnerable moment, including ourselves, with a sensitive presence. Nothing will help us on this journey more than the combination of love and awareness.
This is the key question: Can we bring a kind presence to the ways we feel vulnerable — physically, emotionally, and socially? Mindfulness invites us to be radically honest with how we meet experience. How kindly do you meet your deficiency, loneliness, or free-floating anxiety? What do you do when parenting feels overwhelming or you are struggling with insecurity? When these things happen, how do you relate to that pain? What would it be like to give yourself caring attention rather than to blame yourself or to compare yourself to others?
The more we can bring tenderness to our own struggles, the more likely we can do that when we confront pain in others and in the world. In that spirit, mindful awareness can encourage a kind-hearted embrace of whatever we meet: whether it is a fledgling bird fallen out of the nest or a homeless veteran shivering on cold winter streets. Whether a friend is confessing to troubles in their marriage or a child is getting teased and bullied at school. As the quote in the epigraph says, “Kindness is the expression of awareness.” When kind awareness is fully integrated in our day-to-day life, we can say our practice of mindfulness has truly matured. This maturation is what allows us to meet the inevitable vicissitudes of life with openness and love. Then we can go anywhere, meet any hard or painful experience, and hold it with a caring presence.
This is not so far away as we might imagine. Examples of tenderhearted presence are everywhere we look. I think of the countless nurses who bathe and feed sick patients. Or the people from church missions and homeless shelters who help vulnerable people living on the streets. Or the schoolteachers who bring kindness to the challenges their students are facing. We can see it in our own lives when we are with someone who is struggling, whose life has been shattered by pain, who is struggling in a relationship or feeling the grief of loss, and we help them, in ways large and small, to tenderly pick up the pieces and gather strength and faith.
We can also learn to meet ourselves with a similar kind presence. I remember my own dark night of the soul when I developed chronic fatigue. I was so weak sometimes that I could barely get out of bed to eat or bathe. It was hard for me to be present with a body so depleted and a mind so weary and depressed. It was obvious, though, in the light of awareness, that whenever I resisted, struggled, or hated the illness or blamed and judged myself for being so weak, I felt infinitely worse.
The fatigue became my Zen master. It was a hard but beautiful lesson in surrender. The fruition of my years of practice gave me the ability to listen intimately and sensitively to the needs, wishes, and most of all limitations of my body. This kind presence became the healing path forward. When I was able to access that fusion of awareness and love, then everything was bearable. I met my own vulnerability with self-compassion and tenderness, and this became the foundation for genuine self-healing and a full recovery. The seeds this experience sowed have helped me meet the pain of others with that same kind presence, which has been invaluable in my work, whether that be in therapy, coaching, or teaching.
• PRACTICE •
Find a comfortable posture where you can sit in meditation for fifteen to twenty minutes. Take some minutes to settle your awareness into the sensations of sitting and breathing. Allow yourself to fully arrive in your body.
Now turn your attention to all the ways you may feel physically vulnerable as a human being. Perhaps you feel acutely aware of aging, as the body becomes less strong, more prone to injury, and less energetic. Reflect on your everyday aches and pains, on your vulnerability to colds, injury, and fatigue. Contemplate how this body, however young, healthy, or beautiful, will decline over time and ultimately be no more. What arises when you reflect in this way? Can you bring tenderness and kind attention to this reality? If they are not available, notice what else is present.
Now turn to the vulnerability of the heart. Think of the difficult emotions you experience, like fear, loss, grief, anxiety, and shame. Reflect on any psychological challenges you encounter, such as depression, self-doubt, loneliness, or confusion. How burdensome do these feel? Are you able to hold all that arises with an openhearted presence, or is there reaction or judgment?
Similarly, open to the vulnerability of having a mind that is so rarely in our control. Consider to what degree you are afflicted by a racing mind, catastrophic thinking, and self-judgment. How are you affected or troubled by states of mind, moods, and other mental qualities? Can you bring a caring awareness to this reality? Lastly, contemplate your feelings of social vulnerability, such as the need to be seen, connected, loved, accepted, and approved of. Contemplate the quality of attention you meet these emotions with.
When you reflect on these things, try to bring a kind awareness to all of these states, feelings, and qualities. What is it like to acknowledge the vulnerability of the human condition, which is often out of our hands? Is it possible to bring tenderness and care to your experience? If these qualities are not available, notice what does arise in relation to these difficult experiences.
Now turn that same attention to the experience of loved ones, friends, and colleagues. They, too, are vulnerable to aging, sickness, loss, heartache, rejection, and stress. They, too, have limited control over all the things that affect their well-being. Appreciate the commonality of this human experience. We are all in this together. We are all subject to similar physical, emotional, and mental challenges, no matter how blessed our circumstances. Does reflecting in this way open the heart to tenderness?
As you continue through your day, try to maintain this kind presence as you meet the vulnerabilities of people and life everywhere. The world needs this quality so much, and we all have the capability to develop it.
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