Vulnerability

I've been thinking a lot about vulnerability lately.

I teach about vulnerability in voice lessons.  Singing is about taking chances.   Kids have issues with performing sometimes because singing is so intimate.  I'm not saying that playing for a piano or flute recital won't scare you, but if you make a mistake while playing an instrument, you can always blame it on the instrument.  "This piano is stiffer than the one I'm used to playing on" or "The key stuck".  At the very least, you have an instrument to hide behind.  But not with singing.  It's you on that stage with nothing between you and the audience.  Even if there is an problem with instrument (your voice), it is still part of you, and therefore YOU had a problem.  And in our current world, particularly in the arts, anything less than perfection is failure.

Vulnerability is essential to singing. Singing, real singing, is about baring your soul for the world to see. It's trusting them to see the beauty through the flaws.  It's trusting them to know that sometime the beauty is the flaw.  It's trusting yourself enough to let the beauty created by the poets and composers carry the performance, and not getting caught up in what the listeners think about you.

A few weeks ago, a friend made a reference to these videos in a Facebook conversation.  I've done quite a bit of reading about vulnerability and shame, so I thought, "That's nice.  I'll come back to that later."  After multiple friends shared these videos, I decided that maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.  One watching was not enough.  Next time, I'm sitting down with a paper and pencil and taking notes.  Yes, the videos are that good.  





My third recent encounter with vulnerability was reading the book The God Who Weeps.  In a few days, my book review will be up on my new book blog.  One chapter is specifically about God's vulnerability.  God feels our pain and sorrows and frustrations.  God chooses to love us, and because of that love he opens himself to sympathy and empathy, and weeps with us.

When I was a child, I was taught that we could become as God.  If we lived this life well, we would eventually become gods and goddesses ourselves.  To be honest, this has always bothered me.  My heart weeps for this world, and this world is not my creation and these people are not my spirit children.    I invest a lot in my students and it is hard for me to see them struggle.  I don't really want to watch billions of my children hate and kill each other.  I just don't think I could live with that kind of vulnerability.  I think I would have to be a god like so many people today have decided that our God is:  one who sets things in motion, but then turns his back, unwilling or perhaps unable to do anything about it.  I would have to separate myself to prevent the pain.

I am extremely empathic and sympathetic.  I've built walls, not just to protect the core of me from the outside world, but to protect me from being overwhelmed by the pain and suffering.  Over the last several year, I have become much more open to letting the world see the real me.  On that level, I think I'm getting good at vulnerability.  The walls that protect me from the pain and suffering of the world aren't solid brick.  They have doors and windows that I can open to let it in at the small doses I can handle.  At this point, I don't know if I am supposed to be learning to open the doors and windows wider and more often, or if I am supposed to take down the wall completely.  What I do know is that love and connection can't get in or out through the brick walls.  Moving through the open windows and doors (and maybe even taking down the wall) is the only way that compassion can work.  And I believe in empathy and compassion, so maybe it's time to explore more vulnerability.