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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.

I want to talk about vulnerability and more importantly, how vulnerability is often seen as something that can be exploited.

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.

I want to, by the end of this podcast, I want to try to open your thoughts to that.

We are all vulnerable.

Nobody is not vulnerable.

Even still now, even right now in your position, you are a vulnerable person.

Instead of just looking at a certain group that are vulnerable.

And I want to try to embrace it as a positive, as something that we can lean into and enjoy with courage and wisdom.

So I'm 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.

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.

And I always feel vulnerable whenever I say that, because I don't like asking.

But I watched a wonderful video earlier today about vulnerability.

And one of the most vulnerable things you can do is ask for help.

And I'm asking for your help.

So if you can donate a coffee, if you can leave a review, that's brilliant.

You are awesome.

But thank you for just being here.

And because of you guys, there's no adverts and we can get on with the.

I was going to say meditation.

That's my other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations.

This one, Stillness in the Storms.

Yeah.

Anyway, let's get on with it.

I'm just talking now.

So vulnerability.

Look, we're all vulnerable.

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.

We're relying on others for every aspect of our life, from warmth to feed to comfort, everything.

We would not be here today if it wasn't for somebody else.

Now, in that we may think, well, wait a minute, you know, I didn't have such a great childhood.

My mom or dad weren't great to me and all that.

Well, whichever way we look at it, someone fed you, someone clothed you, someone helped you in the first few months.

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.

We were reliant on others.

And I think it doesn't.

The what we're vulnerable for Changes, we grow older.

So take me and I.

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.

I was talking about everybody else's vulnerability, and I just wasn't tapping into where I'm vulnerable.

And I want to share.

I'm paralyzed.

Paralyzed just below my chest.

My hands are paralyzed.

I'm vulnerable in so many aspects.

Like, I need to be dressed in the morning.

I need to be showered.

You know, so much of my life, I am vulnerable.

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.

And yes, it can really go that high.

And you're only sometimes 10, 15 minutes away from, like, a stroke or even worse.

And it can happen, and it does happen quite regularly.

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.

It was really bad.

Now we've limited it down to only, you know, two or three times every couple of months.

So it's a lot better now.

But I'm vulnerable.

I need people to help me in those situations.

And anybody responding injuries above a certain level suffers from the same condition.

You can look it up online.

Autonomic dysreflexia.

But don't do it till we finish this podcast.

But that's one of the ways I'm vulnerable.

How else am I vulnerable?

You know, in the council, when I'm talking publicly, you know, I'm putting it out there.

And if anything goes wrong, I'm open to judgment.

You know, we all judge each other.

We all do it.

You know, I know it's a nice spiritual thinking that we don't judge.

I don't judge anymore.

Bollocks.

Bullshit.

We have to judge to some degree.

We're going down the street.

We have to judge whether that person's going to do something bad to us or not.

We have to judge whether or not to allow someone to babysit our child.

We have to judge someone to whether or not they're going to be listen to us.

If we go to the doctors, we have to judge.

Judging is not necessarily unhealthy.

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.

And when I say get out of it.

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?

Has he got a good reputation, is he part of a surgery, all of those things.

So, yeah, I'm going there to get something out.

I want his skills, I need to be diagnosed.

So that's what I'm talking about when it comes down to judgment.

So we all judge.

We're all putting ourselves out.

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.

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.

And there's so many things that we're vulnerable for.

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.

So vulnerability is inevitable.

It's not something you can avoid.

It's not something that you can just suddenly go, oh, I'm strong, I'm not vulnerable, I'm not.

There's no way I'm gonna.

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.

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.

When we lean into a relationship and when we say I love you to somebody, that's a massive vulnerability.

You know, when you ask for help, that's a massive vulnerability.

And there's many things that we can't do.

Everything when we get in the car and drive down the road, we're vulnerable.

Everybody else driving those cars and things.

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.

Boy, did I feel vulnerable on those roads.

So if you think about in your life, when do you feel vulnerable?

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.

And vulnerability is just one voice when we're feeling vulnerable.

So moving from the actual being vulnerable to the feeling of vulnerability.

And there is a difference.

It may sound nuanced at first, but it's not quite a massive Difference.

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?

No.

Depends on the situation, depends on who it is, depends on how comfortable I feel.

But also it depends on what voices along with.

And this is the point I want to get onto in this podcast.

What voices are you bringing along with your vulnerability?

Now, that's the good question.

So when I'm feeling vulnerable, I've also.

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.

I've done a podcast on this about two years ago, the 10,000 yous in Buddhism or something like that is called.

And you know, we have literally all these voices within us.

If someone asks us how we feel, we normally answer from one voice.

But if we park that voice aside, what other voice is there?

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.

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.

I felt really vulnerable, but also I felt the wisdom, the courage voices there as well, and I felt the fear.

What if people judge me on it?

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.

Asking for help because I'm putting myself there for people to go, no, what if nobody steps forward?

What if nobody helps me?

How am I going to feel?

So, but when we bring it forward and go, do you know what I'm asking from a place of vulnerability, that's okay.

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.

It's just a single voice and all those other things that go with it, you know, personal growth, that's really vulnerable.

You know, moving forward on the spiritual path, that's painful, that hurts.

You know you're vulnerable when you look up and go, do you know what?

Teach me something new.

Tell me something I don't know.

When you put a question out there and go, help Me, you know, help me learn.

It's vulnerable because you're putting up your beliefs and your opinions up for scrutiny and up for to be challenged.

It's not nice.

It doesn't feel nice.

Starts to feel nice over time because you learn more and you open your vision, you open your horizon, you see more.

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.

And someone slightly up the mountain is going, yeah, but beyond that hut, there's like a nice lake.

And you go, no, there isn't no lake.

I'm telling you now, I'm right.

And the other person is going, well, I can see a lake.

And it's that vulnerability and that courage to go, okay, let me go to where you are and let me have a look.

And then you look at it and go, wow, you're right.

And then you get to see a lake.

Like I'm using that as a metaphor.

But this is what vulnerability is really about.

Leaning in and being vulnerable.

And I think the word itself has so many connotations.

You know, if I said vulnerability to one person, they go, you don't want to be vulnerable.

Someone will take advantage of that.

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.

And in COVID 19, you know, very much the vulnerable people got the jabs first.

And the vulnerable people had to wear masks and things like that.

And you had the strong, non vulnerable people.

You know, I don't need to wear a mask.

I don't need to this.

I'm the cutter self.

I'm strong.

And it's so complex.

It's so complex.

And I'm not doing that on a judgment point of view.

It's where we come from, you know.

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?

And I think that's what's really, really important.

It's which voices can you bring along to the vulnerability?

Which voices can you bring along with the fear?

It's no good just bringing along the fear voice and going, hey, I'm frightened.

Whatever voice is there, okay, let me park the voice of fear aside.

Well, there's an opportunity to be courageous.

There's an opportunity to be brave.

There's an opportunity.

Why am I fearful?

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.

You know, the average person can only name five or six emotions.

And if you asked me several years ago Name 30 emotions, I wouldn't have a clue.

I'd stop about 6.

Happy, sad, angry, vulnerable, courageous, wise, brave.

You know, I'm struggling beyond seven or eight now, but there's so many more.

Myriad of different subtle voices all within those, you know, grief and, you know, joy.

Feeling, enlightened desires.

That's a feeling calm, feeling at peace, feeling at an equilibrium where you're just equal with the world around you.

I think that's the right word.

Let me know in the comments or reviews or even if it's not.

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.

So embrace your vulnerability and bring it along with the courage and wisdom voice at the same time.

I don't know if this helps, but that's my podcast this week.

This is Stillness in the Storms.

I'm Stephen Werland.

You can also tune over to my other podcast, Inner Peace Meditations, where I share all my meditations for free on the podcast.

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.

So thank you, thank you for the reviews and, yeah, I love you.

Take care.

Have an amazing day.

Bye.