Why be vulnerable?

Being emotionally vulnerable with someone means allowing yourself to feel the various not-wholly-physically-caused sensations of your inner body, commonly called emotions, when you are in the presence of another person, including emotions that are specifically a reaction or response to that person. Usually, we are only aware of thoughts and judgments about the person or we are distracted with thoughts about the various aspects of our own life. We have learned to shut down our feelings since our previous experiences of being in touch with our feelings led only to hurt, fear, shame, and embarrassment. And we’ve learned that in order to be a success in this world, we must disregard our feelings. So we have covered these natural human sensations with a thick skin, with veils and barriers, and overlaid them with an artificial personality and self-image, which serve to ward off all the bad or uncomfortable feelings that might come up. And we see others doing the same thing, so it must be okay. As a matter of fact, we seem to get praised for having particular types of personality such as happy, smart, knowledgeable, successful-looking, attractive, spiritual, religious, funny, sweet, kind, charming, sexy. So we modify ours to gain approval and respect.

Now under all these fancy masks and costumes is something else altogether. In the basement of our psyche, is housed all kinds of fear, confusion, anger, hurt, desire, resentment, guilt, shame, hostility, inadequacy, and various aspects of ourselves we don’t like to acknowledge. Most people actually never confront these powerful feelings, for fear of exposure, fear that their whole artificial world will collapse.

One must ultimately reclaim all these hidden aspects of oneself by allowing the repressed feelings to emerge, and accepting them. In order to create love and unity, we must allow the emotional part of ourselves to be experienced, since God gave us these feelings for very important reasons. We can’t just suppress them and pretend everything is fine. We can’t fool God and we should not deceive others in this way. We all want to feel good and feel loved. We need to admit when we don’t feel good or loved, so we can find the answers to the problem of suffering for ourselves and for the world.

It is important that we stay open to all the thoughts and sensations that emerge as we relate to someone. Then we learn what to do with these thoughts and feelings, and what they mean—what they may teach us. We learn about ourselves, and we learn to purify our thoughts and feelings--not exterminate them. We must be loving with ourselves and not too forceful. We offer up what we feel to God, and as we receive His love and knowledge through faith in Him, our thoughts and feelings are purified and transformed, and His light and love envelop us. This brings us closer to God, closer to feeling His love, which will cause us to love others, and will greatly contribute to uniting the world.

About feelings

These are some of the feelings that we could have underneath the personality we use to relate to people: fear of getting/being hurt; need/desire to be liked/loved; guilt for past wrongdoings; shame; feeling inadequate, deficient, flawed, unworthy, worthless, unlovable; fear of being seen as wrong or bad or not good enough; fear of being rejected; anger/resentment towards particular people or towards no one in particular, or towards everyone; desire for all kinds of worldly security especially good health and material comforts; fear of illness, loneliness, death; afraid of making mistakes or being seen as weak; fear of God's punishment; various other unnamed and unspecified anxieties, fears, and desires.

Even if we speak about these fears and desires with someone, we often don't actually let ourselves feel the emotion as energy in the body--we are too busy explaining ourselves to the person. And when we're alone, we rarely are aware of deep emotional sensations, since our lives are filled with ways to distract ourselves from uncomfortable bodily sensations, especially ones that have a strong emotional charge.

Some would say what's the point of feeling things deeply? Well, what's the point of tasting things, or seeing things, or hearing? These senses are part of the body and have important functions. Same with emotions. They are put in our body to receive and reveal to us all kinds of information about the external and internal environment of the body, and they are used to respond to and relate to other people, to ideas, and to things all around us.

An important function of the emotions, I believe, is to apprehend the spiritual reality. We need to feel love, don't we? It is not just an idea in our mind. We feel hurt or loneliness, and then we want love, lasting love, is this not so? We feel an anxious feeling if we do something wrong, don't we? These are emotions revealing to us a response that we need to consider for our physical and spiritual survival.

Emotions have a magnificent and complex functioning we have yet to understand. Science is just beginning to appreciate the power of emotion in our lives. Too bad in the current social and economic system of frenetic struggle for material security and rampant escapism, we are unable to value emotions and regard their place in our lives. We have not learned how to manage feelings, and we are not taught their purpose in our lives. So we learn to ignore them, repress them, or appease our suffering with quick fixes to squelch any negative or painful feeling we may have. After all, we have an image to uphold for others, and this is the way we procure material advantage in this society. God willing, one day soon this trend will be reversed and we will learn how to manage and integrate our feelings, listen to their wisdom, and allow them to add depth, wonder, and healing to our lives.

Transform the Struggle (audio)

This is one of my older talks on spiritual transformation.

Technique for removing veils of self:

What am I doing? Am I doing this because I am supposed to, or because someone told me to, or because I want to?

How do I feel?

What do I want?

What am I afraid of? What am I protecting myself from?

After we identify what we want or what we are afraid of (I want financial security. I want a relationship. I am afraid of the feelings that come if I don’t have money. I am afraid of being alone and not being liked by people. I am afraid of feeling vulnerable and needy. I want to feel love and comfort.)…

Then feel the ‘I want, or ‘I desire’, and the ‘I fear’ or ‘I am afraid’. Feel the desire and fear. I am afraid of (getting hurt or feeling pain). I want (to be free from pain and unhappiness). Feel it in the body, be aware of the sensations in the body related to the fear and desire.

Then come back to the ‘I’ itself. What is it that is wanting, what is it that is fearing? When you can identify with the essential ‘I’, you realize it is distinct from all of the ego wanting and feeling—it is transcendent of all the feelings and thoughts.

Remain in the awareness that is detached from the feelings and thoughts, but still remain aware of your feelings. Feel it as energy and sensations in the body.

Then remove the last veil, and activate your faith in God, and realize that before your essential ‘I’, exists God, your Creator. Behind it all is the love of God. Then you can have the experience of coming home and being warmed by the love of God, who takes away your fear and desire, since He is the Desire of the world.


Put more simply: 1) Directly perceive through your awareness and intelligence that you desire the pleasures and comforts of the world. Notice how you are desiring those things to which you were conditioned to desire from your childhood—good work, spouse, house, good health, money, possessions, worldly position, power, influence. Directly perceive how you are immersed in a sea of conditioned materialism, and therefore remote from God and the transcendent Kingdom which is sanctified from the joys of this world.

2) With this same awareness and intelligence, remember and perceive the infinite Source, Baha’u’llah, the Word of God. In fact, surrender this awareness to Him, realize that He created it and He created you, and that He is the Ultimate Comforter.

Facing feelings

(This is from 5/18/94)

Here's a big challenge: we need to be honest with God about our feelings. We don't necessarily have to share our feelings with another person, but we need to share them with God. In other words, we need to come out of denial, stop stuffing the emotions inside, and start opening up the heart and praying to God, and trusting in God that He will help us and heal us of our suffering. Share the joys and the sorrows. Commune with God, be honest with Him--share thoughts and feelings! Why deny the heart its joy of communing fully with God? God understands us, even if we don't understand ourselves. We can let it all out--all the pain--to God. He will turn it into joy, just because we shared it with Him. You know how sometimes when we open up to a person, we feel better, our problems are mysteriously solved, or at least they don't seem as important anymore? It's because we've let God's love in as we opened our heart and trusted Him. And the transcendent Spirit comes into our hearts and lifts us above this temporal world and shows us the visions of the eternal realm. The emotions of the Kingdom of Heaven are revealed to us, and suddenly our earthly problems don't seem significant anymore.

But if we're constantly denying our emotions in the name of being 'a man', who doesn't feel pain or any emotions for that matter, we'll never know the love of God. We'll be blocked because we haven't faced an important part of ourselves. We can't always be in 'business' mode. Just because that's the society's conditioning doesn't mean it's God's way. God has other ways to remedy the problem of suffering. Don't deny it, but give it to God, or transcend it with love and understanding. The truly religious way to be a 'man' is not society's way. Don't be fooled by the apparent similarities: both say 'be happy and loving'. But God says 'be truly happy and loving by my grace'. Society says 'be happy and loving on the outside even if it means you have to be a hypocrite and stuff or ignore your feelings of discontent or confusion'. Society says don't think too deeply about yourself or reality--you might just find out something--you might see through the game of the old world order and its institutions, God forbid!

God says 'face yourself'. And face Him. Give yourself to Him, along with your feelings of hurt, discontent, confusion, or even joy. When God says try to act positive when you feel negative, it is only because He wants you to eventually become the act and be positive--not to deny any reality. Society is big on denying reality.

But I'm big on being honest and finding the truth in any situation. Especially when it comes to what you feel as a human being. It really helps to be honest about your feelings without any fear of others. And when you open your feelings to God, there's no fear, only love. You can get in touch with His love that way, and experience the feelings of His love--the peace and joy. The emotions can again flow smoothly, the love for others comes out. Without the emotions, we're a shell, doing business in a cold world. Sure, we can accomplish things and be moral and serve God and help people. But if we deny such a part of ourselves, are we truly being spiritual? Can we truly share the love of God and show others the joys of the Kingdom? How can we help others face reality if we're not facing a part of our reality--a part which can feel the love of God, the beauty of life, which can feel the wonders of reality and communicate it like a child? Sure, there are parts of ourselves we haven't faced because they haven't presented themselves to us--that's part of our natural growth process of discovery. But I'm talking about simply feeling the feelings that have indeed come our way, but we stuffed away or denied. These indeed have been shown to us. We must use them to grow closer to God. We must use them to trust God more. They are given to us for our growth, for the growth of our love, of our heart. We cannot deny them any longer.

And this comes back to families and community-building. We need to help each other work through the confusing thoughts and emotions which cause us suffering and joy. We must draw closer to each other as we discover that we all experience similar feelings of isolation, hurt, confusion, etc. We draw on God, and open up to Him and to one another. By sharing in this way, God will bless us with His Holy Spirit, and faith will grow in our hearts and faith will grow in the communities, and people will see the love, and they will be attracted to it. If you have faith, and act on that faith, they will come! There must be initiative and inspiration. And there must be some resources. If people see the love, they will open their hearts and trust, and share. We must create this open, loving, trusting, sharing environment. God help us create this environment. Please create this environment in myself. The pain makes me grow. It stretches my heart and I pray to you more--I must find the Way to Peace. I can never block the truth of Love and the Open Heart. It must come out!

Are Baha'is doing more outer work than inner work? For now, it is important to spread the Teachings. But we must do the inner work, and get in touch with the Real Transcendent Love, that flies above this temporal world. Love that is calm and powerful, and gives tremendous hope. Love that is patient and kind and not overbearing. Love that listens and hears and is compassionate and understanding. Love that heals the suffering. Love that unites the people and unites the hearts. Love that purifies souls and builds families and communities. Love that will one day unite the world in perfect love and harmony.

With this love that comes from God, we can face ourselves and face the world. And we must! We must move forward as an Army of Light and conquer the hearts of men, for the good of the world, for the Cause of God! But we must not force the Message on anyone. People, with their free will, may reject the Message if they wish. We will move on, unshaken, and with complete faith, being nourished by the love of God and His unshakable Word of Truth!

Help us God! Help us find the resources to do this! Oh God, all things come from you. I pray that you give us what we need to fulfill our potential in this earthly realm. Bless us, help us!