Episode 134
Vulnerability: A Pathway to Courage and Wisdom
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Vulnerability is often perceived as a weakness, but in this episode, Steven Webb reframes it as a powerful aspect of our humanity that can be embraced with courage and wisdom. He shares his personal experiences, illustrating how vulnerability is an inherent part of life, from our dependence on others from birth to the challenges we face as we age. By acknowledging our vulnerabilities, we can open ourselves to growth and connection rather than fear and isolation. Steven emphasizes the importance of recognizing the various voices within us—such as fear, courage, and wisdom—that accompany our feelings of vulnerability. Ultimately, he encourages listeners to lean into their vulnerabilities, understanding that they can coexist with strength and bravery, leading to deeper personal insights and relationships.
Stephen Webb delves into the often misunderstood concept of vulnerability, arguing that it is not only a universal trait but also a vital aspect of human connection and personal growth. He begins by emphasizing that everyone experiences vulnerability, whether it be through reliance on others in infancy or facing health challenges later in life. Through his personal experiences with paralysis and the ongoing need for assistance, Stephen illustrates the depth of vulnerability and how it can foster a sense of empathy and community. He invites listeners to reflect on their own vulnerabilities, framing them as opportunities for connection rather than obstacles to overcome.
A significant theme in Stephen's discussion is the dual nature of vulnerability—the state of being vulnerable and the feelings associated with it. He highlights that while we may find ourselves in vulnerable positions, we do not always have to feel vulnerable. By identifying and amplifying the voices of courage and wisdom within us, we can navigate our fears and embrace our vulnerabilities with grace. Stephen's insights prompt listeners to consider what emotional voices they allow to dominate during moments of vulnerability and how shifting this perspective can lead to empowerment and resilience.
Ultimately, Stephen encourages his audience to lean into their vulnerabilities, viewing them as pathways to deeper relationships and personal transformation. He concludes with a call to action, urging listeners to embrace their vulnerabilities as a part of their journey rather than something to shy away from. This episode serves as a poignant reminder that vulnerability is not a weakness, but rather a strength that can lead to profound growth and connection with others.
Takeaways:
- Vulnerability is an inherent part of being human, and we all experience it.
- Asking for help is one of the most courageous acts of vulnerability one can demonstrate.
- Vulnerability can be embraced as a positive trait, leading to personal growth and connection.
- Recognizing the different voices within us helps us navigate feelings of vulnerability effectively.
- When feeling vulnerable, we should also acknowledge voices of courage and wisdom that empower us.
- Embracing vulnerability allows for deeper relationships and a more authentic life experience.
Transcript
I want to talk about vulnerability and more importantly, how vulnerability is often seen as something that can be exploited.
Stephen Webb:But I want to look at it as something that when we mix it with the other voices that we have different emotions and different thoughts.
Stephen Webb:I want to, by the end of this podcast, I want to try to open your thoughts to that.
Stephen Webb:We are all vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:Nobody is not vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:Even still now, even right now in your position, you are a vulnerable person.
Stephen Webb:Instead of just looking at a certain group that are vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:And I want to try to embrace it as a positive, as something that we can lean into and enjoy with courage and wisdom.
Stephen Webb:So I'm Stephen Webb.
Stephen Webb:This is Stillness in the Storms podcast, a podcast that I talk about things that I've experienced in life that help, hopefully helps you to get through the most difficult things in life.
Stephen Webb:And just before we go, just before we start, this podcast doesn't have any adverts because of kind people like you that donate a coffee every now and again.
Stephen Webb:And I always feel vulnerable whenever I say that, because I don't like asking.
Stephen Webb:But I watched a wonderful video earlier today about vulnerability.
Stephen Webb:And one of the most vulnerable things you can do is ask for help.
Stephen Webb:And I'm asking for your help.
Stephen Webb:So if you can donate a coffee, if you can leave a review, that's brilliant.
Stephen Webb:You are awesome.
Stephen Webb:But thank you for just being here.
Stephen Webb:And because of you guys, there's no adverts and we can get on with the.
Stephen Webb:I was going to say meditation.
Stephen Webb:That's my other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations.
Stephen Webb:This one, Stillness in the Storms.
Stephen Webb:Yeah.
Stephen Webb:Anyway, let's get on with it.
Stephen Webb:I'm just talking now.
Stephen Webb:So vulnerability.
Stephen Webb:Look, we're all vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:And the first thing I want to convince you of in some small way, that you're vulnerable to when you were born, just the same as I was born and everybody else, we're vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:We're relying on others for every aspect of our life, from warmth to feed to comfort, everything.
Stephen Webb:We would not be here today if it wasn't for somebody else.
Stephen Webb:Now, in that we may think, well, wait a minute, you know, I didn't have such a great childhood.
Stephen Webb:My mom or dad weren't great to me and all that.
Stephen Webb:Well, whichever way we look at it, someone fed you, someone clothed you, someone helped you in the first few months.
Stephen Webb:Later on, they might not have treated you so well, and it may not have been perfect, but whichever way, someone must have done it, we were vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:We were reliant on others.
Stephen Webb:And I think it doesn't.
Stephen Webb:The what we're vulnerable for Changes, we grow older.
Stephen Webb:So take me and I.
Stephen Webb:This is the second time I've recorded this podcast, and the first time, when I was editing it through, I thought I just wasn't being honest.
Stephen Webb:I was talking about everybody else's vulnerability, and I just wasn't tapping into where I'm vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:And I want to share.
Stephen Webb:I'm paralyzed.
Stephen Webb:Paralyzed just below my chest.
Stephen Webb:My hands are paralyzed.
Stephen Webb:I'm vulnerable in so many aspects.
Stephen Webb:Like, I need to be dressed in the morning.
Stephen Webb:I need to be showered.
Stephen Webb:You know, so much of my life, I am vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:I suffer from autonomic dysreflexia, which is the condition that anything happens below my level of injury and my blood pressure can go sky high, like 250 over 150.
Stephen Webb:And yes, it can really go that high.
Stephen Webb:And you're only sometimes 10, 15 minutes away from, like, a stroke or even worse.
Stephen Webb:And it can happen, and it does happen quite regularly.
Stephen Webb:You know, I was going through about last year before I had a major operation where I was going dysreflexic several times a month, sometimes six or seven times in a day.
Stephen Webb:It was really bad.
Stephen Webb:Now we've limited it down to only, you know, two or three times every couple of months.
Stephen Webb:So it's a lot better now.
Stephen Webb:But I'm vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:I need people to help me in those situations.
Stephen Webb:And anybody responding injuries above a certain level suffers from the same condition.
Stephen Webb:You can look it up online.
Stephen Webb:Autonomic dysreflexia.
Stephen Webb:But don't do it till we finish this podcast.
Stephen Webb:But that's one of the ways I'm vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:How else am I vulnerable?
Stephen Webb:You know, in the council, when I'm talking publicly, you know, I'm putting it out there.
Stephen Webb:And if anything goes wrong, I'm open to judgment.
Stephen Webb:You know, we all judge each other.
Stephen Webb:We all do it.
Stephen Webb:You know, I know it's a nice spiritual thinking that we don't judge.
Stephen Webb:I don't judge anymore.
Stephen Webb:Bollocks.
Stephen Webb:Bullshit.
Stephen Webb:We have to judge to some degree.
Stephen Webb:We're going down the street.
Stephen Webb:We have to judge whether that person's going to do something bad to us or not.
Stephen Webb:We have to judge whether or not to allow someone to babysit our child.
Stephen Webb:We have to judge someone to whether or not they're going to be listen to us.
Stephen Webb:If we go to the doctors, we have to judge.
Stephen Webb:Judging is not necessarily unhealthy.
Stephen Webb:Unhealthy judging is when we put ourselves better than them and we're not looking at it as to what we can get out of it.
Stephen Webb:And when I say get out of it.
Stephen Webb:You know, if I'm going to the doctor, I'm judging the doctor based on, is he a real doctor, Do I know him?
Stephen Webb:Has he got a good reputation, is he part of a surgery, all of those things.
Stephen Webb:So, yeah, I'm going there to get something out.
Stephen Webb:I want his skills, I need to be diagnosed.
Stephen Webb:So that's what I'm talking about when it comes down to judgment.
Stephen Webb:So we all judge.
Stephen Webb:We're all putting ourselves out.
Stephen Webb:When it comes to when we put ourselves out in public, when we put ourselves on Facebook, when we put a picture up or anything like that, we're vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:That's why we take, and I got friends and one of my carers, they'll take like 500 selfies at different angles, just trying to get it right because we're vulnerable and we put ourselves out there and it's terrifying sometimes.
Stephen Webb:And there's so many things that we're vulnerable for.
Stephen Webb:And if you get the joy of getting old, you'll become more vulnerable then when you need people to look after you and things like that.
Stephen Webb:So vulnerability is inevitable.
Stephen Webb:It's not something you can avoid.
Stephen Webb:It's not something that you can just suddenly go, oh, I'm strong, I'm not vulnerable, I'm not.
Stephen Webb:There's no way I'm gonna.
Stephen Webb:Well, you know, something might happen to you in your life, you might end up with an illness and all that that makes you vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:Just because, you know, you might feel a bit masculine and strong and strength wise and all that, it doesn't mean to say you're not vulnerable in other ways.
Stephen Webb:When we lean into a relationship and when we say I love you to somebody, that's a massive vulnerability.
Stephen Webb:You know, when you ask for help, that's a massive vulnerability.
Stephen Webb:And there's many things that we can't do.
Stephen Webb:Everything when we get in the car and drive down the road, we're vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:Everybody else driving those cars and things.
Stephen Webb:I've just spent the best part of a month in September going around Cornwall in my electric wheelchair raising money for the Cornwall Ambulance.
Stephen Webb:Boy, did I feel vulnerable on those roads.
Stephen Webb:So if you think about in your life, when do you feel vulnerable?
Stephen Webb:Blots and all the times you have been and all the times you will be in the future, but we can lean in with a bit of courage.
Stephen Webb:And vulnerability is just one voice when we're feeling vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:So moving from the actual being vulnerable to the feeling of vulnerability.
Stephen Webb:And there is a difference.
Stephen Webb:It may sound nuanced at first, but it's not quite a massive Difference.
Stephen Webb:You know, I might be vulnerable when it comes to people getting me out of bed or when it comes to my care, but do I always feel vulnerable?
Stephen Webb:No.
Stephen Webb:Depends on the situation, depends on who it is, depends on how comfortable I feel.
Stephen Webb:But also it depends on what voices along with.
Stephen Webb:And this is the point I want to get onto in this podcast.
Stephen Webb:What voices are you bringing along with your vulnerability?
Stephen Webb:Now, that's the good question.
Stephen Webb:So when I'm feeling vulnerable, I've also.
Stephen Webb:Normally I've got a fear voice, but I haven't very often got the voice of courage and the voice of wisdom, and it's which voice we allow to win.
Stephen Webb:I've done a podcast on this about two years ago, the 10,000 yous in Buddhism or something like that is called.
Stephen Webb:And you know, we have literally all these voices within us.
Stephen Webb:If someone asks us how we feel, we normally answer from one voice.
Stephen Webb:But if we park that voice aside, what other voice is there?
Stephen Webb:So if you think back to the last time you were feeling really vulnerable, when was the last time I felt really, really vulnerable, but first morning, getting out of bed and things like that, as far from the everyday things.
Stephen Webb:I think the last time I was feeling vulnerable, I'd done a video on my Trust City Councillor page, not the Trur City Councillor page, on my counselor page, and I was announcing that I'm standing for Cornwall Council.
Stephen Webb:I felt really vulnerable, but also I felt the wisdom, the courage voices there as well, and I felt the fear.
Stephen Webb:What if people judge me on it?
Stephen Webb:What if people put comments, they don't want me to do it, And I was asking for help because I'm asking people to deliver leaflets because I can't deliver leaflets, that terrifies me.
Stephen Webb:Asking for help because I'm putting myself there for people to go, no, what if nobody steps forward?
Stephen Webb:What if nobody helps me?
Stephen Webb:How am I going to feel?
Stephen Webb:So, but when we bring it forward and go, do you know what I'm asking from a place of vulnerability, that's okay.
Stephen Webb:I'm asking from a place of courage and braveness, I'm asking from a place of wisdom, then we can start to see vulnerability as a real strength.
Stephen Webb:It's just a single voice and all those other things that go with it, you know, personal growth, that's really vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:You know, moving forward on the spiritual path, that's painful, that hurts.
Stephen Webb:You know you're vulnerable when you look up and go, do you know what?
Stephen Webb:Teach me something new.
Stephen Webb:Tell me something I don't know.
Stephen Webb:When you put a question out there and go, help Me, you know, help me learn.
Stephen Webb:It's vulnerable because you're putting up your beliefs and your opinions up for scrutiny and up for to be challenged.
Stephen Webb:It's not nice.
Stephen Webb:It doesn't feel nice.
Stephen Webb:Starts to feel nice over time because you learn more and you open your vision, you open your horizon, you see more.
Stephen Webb:Say you're halfway up a mountain and you're having an argument with someone and you're saying, no, look, all I can see is those trees and the hut over there.
Stephen Webb:And someone slightly up the mountain is going, yeah, but beyond that hut, there's like a nice lake.
Stephen Webb:And you go, no, there isn't no lake.
Stephen Webb:I'm telling you now, I'm right.
Stephen Webb:And the other person is going, well, I can see a lake.
Stephen Webb:And it's that vulnerability and that courage to go, okay, let me go to where you are and let me have a look.
Stephen Webb:And then you look at it and go, wow, you're right.
Stephen Webb:And then you get to see a lake.
Stephen Webb:Like I'm using that as a metaphor.
Stephen Webb:But this is what vulnerability is really about.
Stephen Webb:Leaning in and being vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:And I think the word itself has so many connotations.
Stephen Webb:You know, if I said vulnerability to one person, they go, you don't want to be vulnerable.
Stephen Webb:Someone will take advantage of that.
Stephen Webb:Someone likes the vulnerability in people and they will literally take advantage and they will beat that person down and they will do all these things to that person because they see them as a vulnerable individual.
Stephen Webb:And in COVID 19, you know, very much the vulnerable people got the jabs first.
Stephen Webb:And the vulnerable people had to wear masks and things like that.
Stephen Webb:And you had the strong, non vulnerable people.
Stephen Webb:You know, I don't need to wear a mask.
Stephen Webb:I don't need to this.
Stephen Webb:I'm the cutter self.
Stephen Webb:I'm strong.
Stephen Webb:And it's so complex.
Stephen Webb:It's so complex.
Stephen Webb:And I'm not doing that on a judgment point of view.
Stephen Webb:It's where we come from, you know.
Stephen Webb:And I think there's my thoughts this week on leaning into vulnerability with wisdom and courage and what other voices can you bring to it?
Stephen Webb:And I think that's what's really, really important.
Stephen Webb:It's which voices can you bring along to the vulnerability?
Stephen Webb:Which voices can you bring along with the fear?
Stephen Webb:It's no good just bringing along the fear voice and going, hey, I'm frightened.
Stephen Webb:Whatever voice is there, okay, let me park the voice of fear aside.
Stephen Webb:Well, there's an opportunity to be courageous.
Stephen Webb:There's an opportunity to be brave.
Stephen Webb:There's an opportunity.
Stephen Webb:Why am I fearful?
Stephen Webb:And you can go through that dialogue and you'll find out that fear is just one of the complex myriad of different emotions we have at any given time.
Stephen Webb:You know, the average person can only name five or six emotions.
Stephen Webb:And if you asked me several years ago Name 30 emotions, I wouldn't have a clue.
Stephen Webb:I'd stop about 6.
Stephen Webb:Happy, sad, angry, vulnerable, courageous, wise, brave.
Stephen Webb:You know, I'm struggling beyond seven or eight now, but there's so many more.
Stephen Webb:Myriad of different subtle voices all within those, you know, grief and, you know, joy.
Stephen Webb:Feeling, enlightened desires.
Stephen Webb:That's a feeling calm, feeling at peace, feeling at an equilibrium where you're just equal with the world around you.
Stephen Webb:I think that's the right word.
Stephen Webb:Let me know in the comments or reviews or even if it's not.
Stephen Webb:But yeah, there's a myriad of all these different voices and complexities that I think when we look at a single entity of an emotion or a state of vulnerability, we don't do it justice.
Stephen Webb:So embrace your vulnerability and bring it along with the courage and wisdom voice at the same time.
Stephen Webb:I don't know if this helps, but that's my podcast this week.
Stephen Webb:This is Stillness in the Storms.
Stephen Webb:I'm Stephen Werland.
Stephen Webb:You can also tune over to my other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations, where I share all my meditations for free on the podcast.
Stephen Webb:And I'm going to be very vulnerable now and say, look, I don't have adverts and that's why you have the opportunity to donate a coffee, which helps keep these online, and it stops you having to listen to 4 minutes every 10 minutes breaking out of the podcast.
Stephen Webb:So thank you, thank you for the reviews and, yeah, I love you.
Stephen Webb:Take care.
Stephen Webb:Have an amazing day.
Stephen Webb:Bye.
