Where do you start when you can't find your words?

Where do you start when you have so many thoughts and emotions that you want to put on paper, but you can't manage to put them in order so that something clear comes out?

Where do you start, even if it's not the first time you've sat at the desk and the pencil is stuck on the white of the paper?

I worked on the subject of the writing blockage in a coaching session...

...and I realized that writing for me means being vulnerable, it means leaving a window open to my thoughts and emotions, a window open to everyone.

I grew up and worked in an environment where I was inoculated with the belief that being or letting yourself be vulnerable was a weakness, saying what you think, living your emotions, crying or enjoying yourself too much was not allowed. I think this environment is familiar to many of us.

Early attempts to show myself vulnerable led me to people who "took advantage" of my vulnerability to find reasons to "not be good or strong enough" for "something". In those moments, the first emotion felt was regret - regret that I listened to an inner voice that I let guide me as I searched for an echo of my thoughts in the thoughts of others.

"Not being good enough" was already a belief that i had...

...and the rejections only strengthened it. This belief constantly led me to prove that “I can” - “I can” as the younger sister, “I can” as a girl, “I can” as a woman, “I can” as a wife, “I can” as a divorced woman, "I can" being alone.

"I can" meant for me to not ask for help, to not cry, to not complain, to learn more, to work harder, to manage on my own.

"I can" meant for me to prove that "I deserve" to be loved...

...to be embraced, to be forgiven when I was wrong, to have someone there to catch me when I was going to fall. And I fell. And no one was there to catch me, not because I didn't deserve it, but because it wasn't anyone's duty to be there. I needed ME to be ready to be there for myself, I needed ME to realize that I deserved, I needed to love MYSELF.

So, at some point, “I can” turned into “I want to not can anymore”, I asked for help, and I did well, because everything started to change: my thoughts, my behavior, my habits, my state of mind, the people around me, the relationships I had, the situations I was in.

The changes didn’t come without pain, but nor a birth is, because that was for me, it was like a second birth - a second birth that gave me a life free of "proving", a life to live, finally, consciously, for myself.

The changes didn’t take place overnight...

...these changes have been going on for some years and I can say that change has become a constant in my life.

In time, I was shown that rejections, which I considered failures, were steps forward, steps towards my path, my development, my mission, and what I was previously denied was, in fact, a gift – the gift of having the mental and spiritual availability for what was written for me.

Now I smile with confidence when I realize that vulnerability is a power - in fact, it is a super power - a super power that freed me and continues to free me from the limits I had imposed on myself, from the frustrations that came because I felt like a prisoner in circumstances I ended up in because I wasn't honest with myself.

For me, vulnerability requires courage...

...the courage to show myself as imperfect as I am, compassion - for me and for those around me, and authenticity - to let myself be the way I need to be.

Vulnerability does not mean a state of comfort, at least not for me, not now, not yet, but I let myself be more and more vulnerable because now I don’t know how else to be. Vulnerability opened the door to happiness and love, to the feeling of peace and belonging, to a state of creativity, to the path that is written for me.

What I like most is that vulnerability brings me a state of freedom, a state in which I no longer feel that weight on my chest, a state in which I am so in touch with what is happening to me that I feel goosebumps often, share it with others, and enjoy it.

I get goosebumps even now at the thought of letting my thoughts here, in the first blog post, and I can only be delighted that I let myself be seen as vulnerable.

My story can as well be anyone's story, so in closing, I invite you to answer a few questions about your relationship with vulnerability: