Best Self Magazine

Nurturing and Vulnerability: The Power of Healing Our Wounded Child

Nurturing and Vulnerability. Photograph of boy on swing by Brandon Wong
Photograph by Brandon Wong

If we want to truly heal our emotional wounds, we must first learn to access, embrace, and nurture our vulnerability

While on a walk with a dear friend recently, I was taken by surprise when some deep wounded feelings began to come up. Fortunately, I let myself share and have a big ol’ cry right where we stood. As it turns out, those particular feelings were connected to challenges I went through with my father when I was a child. Once I was done sharing, it occurred to me that I had been carrying those specific feelings around inside me for decades.

By the end of our walk on that sunny, clear morning, I was grateful for two things: (1) that I have friends who are willing to offer loving support when I have an emotional need, and (2) that I have already spent a great deal of quality time teaching myself how to feel safe with vulnerable experiences.

I think these perspectives are important to share because I don’t believe most people truly feel safe with vulnerable feelings. We live in a world that has been operating with a primitive emotional education in many ways, and it seems to me that neither men nor women tend to trust the beautiful process of acknowledging, sharing and releasing their feelings — particularly when it

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