Growing strengths from the inside has felt like I’m growing a layer of bark. Bark creates a barrier that keeps moisture in and things like infection out.
Tender living parts of a tree grow underneath bark and are protected.
Bark is vital for a tree’s survival and health. It’s a home for an entire ecosystem of lichens, fungi, and ferns. Beneficial bugs like spiders live “on the bark,” others on the sap, protected by the bark.
Vulnerabilities are places where bark was removed, worn down, hurt in some way. This is a vulnerability because the tender parts get exposed to extreme conditions and don’t have a way to regulate what they need from the environment in order to grow.
An oak tree grows out of an acorn. That capacity is inherent within it. The innate strength of an acorn that falls in a dense forest may be overwhelmed. It may not receive the sunlight, water or space it needs to take hold. It might sprout but not thrive and become a majestic tree.
Something that we have in common in life is that innate strengths that used to carry us through challenges when we were younger, get overwhelmed by extraordinary demands of modern life. Like a tree’s bark, tender parts get exposed to harsh conditions. We lose some of our inborn capacity to rebound. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
It used to be that my vulnerabilities outweighed my ballast. I was easily swayed, took things personally, lost sight of a bigger picture, unable to see another person’s point of view. I reacted without taking time to pause and considering the weight of my words or actions. It took a long time to recover from being side swiped when a limiting belief about unworthiness overwhelmed me, when grief made my knees buckle.
Knowing our vulnerabilities well enough to recognize when we’re headed toward the dung pile, gives us that time to take a breath. Acting out of anger, imagining we have control when we don’t, seeing when we’re being too hard on ourselves, identifying the markers that we’re out of our range, that we’re not clear where we’re heading and it’s bumpy terrain, that we’ve lost our inner navigational system.
A metaphor that Rick Hanson used is we can learn to strengthen our inner foundation. We can grow inner resources. Just like we don’t put a house’s foundation on quicksand, we don’t build our life now like we would have 20 or 30 or 50 years ago. We genuinely consider what’s needed now. For a house, we look at whether the site is level, if there are water issues, or where the sun will shine brightest. In life, it’s how we relate to difficulties, how we come through a challenge and grow from it, what is within our reach and what isn’t. For example, I love to sing popular music in a chorus. My voice is not that of a solo opera performer. All the practice in the world wouldn’t change that. My strength is to blend with others, and find joy in it.
When we foresee the need to get stronger, we can start our inner weight training right now. If we’ll be asked by our circumstances to become a caregiver, we can get current with how we care for ourselves. Caregiving requires so much more of us. We can practice giving to ourselves generously, as we’ll be asked to give generously to the person in our care.
If we are blessed with love, we can digest the grief and losses we’ve already had, knowing that we will all lose those near and dear to us. When we experience a new loss, we can find our footing and with time, choose how to find meaning again, perhaps becoming a resource to others in grief.
If we are managing illness, or frailty, we can learn to accept what is in front of us, not turn away. Our courage to face what is present will help others to do the same. Our clarity will be a gift to those who will tend to us or remember us.
Whatever life has dealt us, we can find new ways to respond. We recognize vulnerabilities and grow new layers of bark, protecting our life energy. We do our weight training. We deepen our ballast. These choices we make through our whole conscious lives. One thing is for sure. We do this better together.
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