Episode 9
Accepting The Power of Vulnerability: Embracing Your True Self
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Embracing vulnerability is a crucial theme as Aline guides listeners on a journey of self-acceptance and imperfection. The discussion begins with the importance of allowing oneself to be imperfect, recognizing that everyone, including ourselves, has flaws. Aline emphasizes the societal pressures that lead individuals, particularly empaths and highly sensitive people, to adopt perfectionistic tendencies. By acknowledging these pressures, listeners can begin to release the burden of unrealistic expectations. Aline shares personal anecdotes of vulnerability, illustrating that even those who coach others in acceptance also experience moments of emotional turmoil. This realization serves as a powerful reminder that vulnerability is not a weakness but an essential part of the human experience.
As the conversation unfolds, Aline delves into the significance of giving oneself a break. She encourages listeners to practice compassion and kindness towards themselves, especially during challenging times. The episode resonates with the universal struggle of navigating life’s pressures while remaining true to one’s authentic self. Aline’s gentle tone and insightful guidance provide comfort, inviting listeners to explore their emotions without fear. Ultimately, she reminds everyone that it’s okay to reach out for help and allow others to see their imperfections, fostering deeper connections and understanding within their communities.
The episode culminates in a guided meditation designed to center listeners and connect them with their inner selves. Aline invites her audience to take a moment to breathe, relax, and surrender to the present moment, emphasizing the importance of self-nurturing. By the end of the episode, listeners are left with a renewed sense of acceptance and the understanding that embracing vulnerability leads to a fuller, richer life. Aline’s message is clear: authenticity and vulnerability are not only acceptable but essential for personal growth and connection.
There are 2 moments of swearing in this episode.
Transcript
I would like to talk about is allowing imperfection. Then I would like to talk to you about giving yourself a break.
And then I would like to take you through just a really gentle journey that is going to help you get further and further towards that acceptance because there's so many pieces to us. Full disclosure, I had a massive SOB this afternoon before I was recording and then I realized as this was all going on. Today is about vulnerability.
Aline:Welcome to Accepting, where I guide you to accept all aspects of your beautiful self, embrace your truth and live your life that way.
Aline:Hello, gorgeous. And a warm welcome to Accepting. I'm Aline, your host. I'm the acceptance coach, a channel and a mentor.
And I love to see highly sensitive people and empaths of all walks of life flourish. Thanks so much for joining me for another episode. Today we are going to be discovering about accepting our vulnerability.
So grab a cup of tea, get yourself comfy and let's dive in. So vulnerability is a big word, the V word.
I'm going to break down what we're going to go through first of all, and I was, wasn't sure, entirely sure what we were going to be talking about. And for many of us sensitives, things are feeling rather fractious.
So I felt very much that an episode on vulnerability just feel so right at the moment. So this is going to be. I never have notes, even when I'm looking down, by the way. I never have notes.
If you're watching this, I'm looking down because that's my, my way of, of receiving and feeling. This is going to go where it's going to go. So wherever we're going to go, channel wise, that's where we're going.
The cats are all with me, as ever, they're coming round and that's why I keep looking over there. I think we might have one behind me in a moment. So vulnerability, what we're going to talk about and what we're going to discover.
The, the points that I would like to make is as empaths, it can be instilled into us, the good boy and the good girl. So it's allowing imperfection. That's the first thing I would like to talk about, is allowing imperfection.
Then I would like to talk to you about giving yourself a break.
And then I would like to take you through just a really guided, gentle journey that is going to help you, I really hope, help you get further and further towards that acceptance. Because there's so many pieces to us and as we are accepting our inner critic, the three Fs.
As we're accepting our sensitivity, as we're accepting our gifts, and as we're accepting that everything happened exactly how it was supposed to happen.
To get to this point, I have mentioned before, it's not easy, and it's really, really important to be really, really gentle and compassionate with ourselves. Which, yes, as we listen to, yeah, we can say, of course I'm going to be gentle and compassionate with myself. And there are times when we're not.
So it's really important that we just acknowledge ourselves. And we don't have a go at ourselves either.
We just acknowledge ourselves that there are certain moments that we might be a bit tough on ourselves because we've been in this good boy, good girl, good person mode. So, first of all, I would really like you to acknowledge that nobody is perfect, including yourself.
And as much as we talk about nobody's perfect, how much pressure do we put on ourselves to be perfect, to show up in the best way that we can for everybody else to show up in the best way so we can put pressure on ourselves, on the way we look, on our bodies, on our writing, on our recording, on our nail polish, whatever it is. There is something sometimes when we're not completely centered and grounded, when we're not in our absolute flow, that can just kick us off.
And more often than not, there you go, imperfection. More often than not, my gorgeous. It's perfectionism. So what I would really, really like to encourage you with is that you're not perfect.
We are not perfect. And again, as I've said before, I've been there, done that, bought the T shirt, and we're all constantly working on ourselves.
So when we're entering into something that's new, because as we're accepting our gifts, as we're accepting that we have shown up in a certain way and we've created a Persona to fit in. My cat, bless him, Tigre, is now scratching the furniture to prove the point.
As we're getting to that point, and perhaps our three Fs are kicking in with the fourth F with the fawning, and we're getting to that point, there's going to be change in our environment because we're changing our mindset. We're not changing who we are. We're changing who we've been telling ourselves who we are. We're changing what other people have told us who we are.
And again, absolutely no judgment zone. So there is change going on because we're having eureka moments.
We're having, oh, well, that happened So I could learn from this, or I didn't take that opportunity because my mindset, my limiting beliefs stopped me. It's accepting where we are up to this point.
So I really wanted to talk about vulnerability today because it's so important that we accept as we're going into discovering what our gifts are and as we're going to nurturing those gifts, we're not going to perfectly go, okay, right. I'm a fantastic writer. I'm an amazing singer. You probably already are. It's allowing yourself, you know, I'm amazing at magic.
I'm amazing at witchcraft spells. It's allowing yourself those experiences so you can grow and learn from them, which is you've been doing all your life anyway.
So, you know, we have come for human experience. We have come here to experience being human, and it's not perfection.
So as we are going into realizing we've actually been lying to ourselves most of our lives, that's massive. As we are going into, we have allowed other people and it's really important that we are honest with ourselves and accountable this, for this.
We have allowed other people to tell us who we are. We have allowed situations to tell us who we are. We've allowed limiting beliefs to tell us who we are.
And as we're getting to that unraveling and that unpeeling, that kind of the cocoon and the chrysalis of the butterfly, so with a caterpillar and then we're going into all that gooey stuff, this is where we are at the moment. So this is where it's so important, important to really, really allow imperfections, completely allow it.
Because for us to accept all aspects of ourselves, it's not Pollyanna, it's not perfectionism. It's who we actually are. That whole gorgeous building blocks, not walls, building blocks of actually who we are.
All our little pieces of our personality, all the little pieces that make us fabulously imperfect. And yes, I'm very passionate about this. So that's what I would like to start off with, is allowing vulnerability.
Accepting vulnerability is allowing ourselves to be imperfect. Okay, so that's number one. Number two is allowing others to see that you're not perfect. And this is where vulnerability massively comes in.
So as empaths and highly sensitive people with these gifts of sensitivity that we very likely adapted, that we're still working with in different ways in our lives, it's highly likely that we've been doing it all ourselves, that we don't need any help.
Because if we have these sensitivities if everybody's used to leaning on us, if we're used to being the solution finder, if we're used to being the one that has the answers, if we're used to being the one that solves the problem, then we have to show up as stoic and strong. No. Sound familiar? So it's unraveling again. This is the story that we've been telling ourselves. It's unraveling. What does strength mean?
So being a Brit, you may have noticed, you know, it's that whole kind of stiff upper lip thing. It's that we've been told however many times, crying is a weakness, showing your weakness.
And if we're showing up as these strong people, and I'm using inverted commas for those of you who are listening, if we're showing up as these strong, strong people and we're stoic and we've got the shoulder to cry on, and we've got it all, all going on, and we're gliding along. I used this before as well. We're gliding along on the surface, it looks like we're a swan underneath.
It's not even just gently splashing the webbed feet. It's going like Billio underneath. And it's exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting.
So when we show up in this, I've got you, I've got myself, I've got everything, Everything's under control. It's really important that we allow things not to be in control.
Because when we have that perfectionist, I've got this, I've got this, I've got this, that grabbing. I've got everything under control and everything's fine. When something comes in to knock us off that controlling perfectionism, we go further down.
So it's so important, so important, my gorgeous, that you allow yourself to be imperfect and you allow others to see your imperfections. You allow others to see that you're human, that you make mistakes. You allow others to see that you don't always have completely perfect rhetoric.
You allow others to see that you can put your foot in it sometimes. You allow others to see that as you're writing poetry, as you're receiving messages, you're not right all the time.
You know, it's really, really important that as sensitives and as students and as teachers and as healers and as psychics and as all in the healing arts, all in the performing arts, nobody is perfect. That's why we're given rehearsals, you know, that's why we're given rehearsals, because, okay, let's put it this way.
So before you go on stage, before you go on stage to perform, so think about the West End in London. They don't just go, here's the script. On you go, there's rehearsals. There's the most beautiful coming together of the.
I'm going to use the word tribe. Of the tribe, of the troupe, of the theater. There's getting to know each other. There's seeing and exploring and feeling into characters.
It's not just there's a script, learn the lines. On you go. And that's the same in life. You know, the, the.
If I can get this right, you know, the, the Shakespearean, the world's a stage and we are mere actors upon it. Don't tell me off for getting that wrong. It's more or less that.
So why do you think then, when you've got to a point where you've accepted where you are, that you've accepted, okay, I've shown up in a way for other people, not necessarily for myself, that you're going to get to that point and you're going to be perfect in every way with your gifts. You're going to be perfect as you show up. Nobody is perfect.
And so it's really important, and I spoke about in a previous episode about your greatest fear being your greatest gift.
It's really important that as we're going through, because we're going to be delving in on, on what those gifts are, it's really important that you give yourself so much kindness, so much compassion. You do not compare yourself to somebody who's already been living their truth for 10 years or so.
And you don't compare yourself to somebody who doesn't really understand their truth.
You compare yourself, if ever, to how far you've come, which is wonderful, brilliant, because if we're comparing ourselves to somebody else, somebody's either down there or somebody's up there and nobody's perfect.
And if you're going to compare yourself to somebody who's, let's say, like I said, 10 years ahead, getting to know themselves and, and living their truth, then compare that and aspire to that. Feel inspired by that. No. Oh, well, I'm never going to get there. What's the point? Okay, so this feels huge at the moment to talk about.
And as we're nearing the end of the year, we can start reviewing where we've been, etc, so forth. Review it in a really, really beautiful, compassionate way of how far you've come, not what you didn't get to do, how far you've Come.
Okay, so we've spoken about the. The element of perfectionism. We've spoken about, you know, showing up in this. This strong person.
So the other side of this, and we've spoken about rehearsals and not being perfect. The other side of this is what I would really like to cover and for you to discover as you're listening along, is authenticity.
So we're talking about pure authenticity. We're talking about showing up as exactly who we are. And that means tears and all.
Full disclosure, I had a massive sob this afternoon before I was recording. Full disclosure. I nearly didn't record because I was in absolute bits and I was in such a state that I did not know what was going on.
And it's really important to acknowledge that even when we have all the tools, even when we've done so much work, we are human. And it took me a lot less time than it would have done five years ago if that had happened. To get out of it, I just sat in the emotions.
I allowed myself to feel whatever I was feeling because it had to rise up and it had to come out somewhere. And then I realized as this was all going on today is about vulnerability.
And I've mentioned before, I do very much feel that many of us are here for our experiences so we can help other people go through it, so we can recognize when other people are going through what we've been through, and we can hold them and we can support them. I do feel very, very strongly about that. And that's why I'm telling you this is my vulnerability. I cry.
You know, I cry and it's taken a very, very, very long time to be able to cry in front of others. There's still certain people I don't fry, I don't cry in front of. And again, it's no judgment. It's from formative years.
It's from being told and being, you know, from. From what we've observed around us of what strength is. Is not crying, is not showing your weakness, is not being sensitive.
So that's lots of layers to come off, you know, and that's why I am talking to you about this now. Because when something comes up so strongly for me, and as I said, I nearly didn't record, I thought, how can I record?
I'm just going to be crying constantly. And I had it all planned again, the control thing.
I was going to start recording at this time, finish recording at this time because of the light, etc, so forth, and then I could go out for my walk in nature. La la la. La la. And it's all completely gone out the window because nobody's in control.
And I accept that this is happening exactly how it's supposed to happen. So please allow yourself to be vulnerable. Please allow yourself to be vulnerable because as much, and as I said, this is me.
As much as we can show up and we can be that strength, if you like, that shoulders are crying for somebody, that the. The words of wisdom for somebody else, we can be the solution finder for somebody. And you may have found this gorgeous.
When it comes to you speaking to somebody about what's going on with you, you're not able to because you don't feel that others will be able to hold you and support you in the same way. Bollocks, quite frankly. Bollocks. Forget that or bullshit, whatever you want to use because that's judging somebody straight away.
And I, you know, I've been absolutely, I hold my hands up to this. I've been absolutely there.
I felt, well, I can't talk to this person about what I'm going through because they're not going to understand, they're not going to hold me in the way that I can hold them. We don't hold anybody else in the way that anybody else holds us because we're all completely unique and different.
And who am I to say that the way that person's going to hold me is actually. For my betterment is actually what I really, really need. That's how I need to be held.
I might need a bit of tough love I might need a bit of actually, I've got you, I'm going to hold you. Let it all out and cry. Who knows, who, who knows how that's going to look?
So that's another part of vulnerability is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and also allowing others to be able to be there for us because that can be another way that we don't show up in our authenticity. That can be another way that we go, I'm fine, I'm absolutely fine. Nobody can help me. I don't need to speak to anybody. I'm absolutely fine.
I've got this.
Keep pushing through Keep pushing through Keep pushing through Keep pushing through behind closed doors no one can see me Cry my eyes out and the next day I'm fine. Instead of speaking about what's actually going on. So I really invite you to be massively honest with yourself. And I'm not saying go into moan mode.
This isn't about, oh, well, this happened and this happened, this happened and this happened, this happened constantly. It's allowing yourself to realize that you have been holding so much in that you might be about to burst.
And it's about allowing yourself to just be vulnerable in front of somebody else. Somebody.
When I say in front of somebody else, somebody who gets you, somebody who's on your vibrational level, not somebody that's going to use it as. As an advantage. And you'll find as you're unraveling, as you're going through this, the right people. There's no right or wrong. The.
The people who vibrate at the level that you need in that moment are going to start showing up and they're going to see you for you, because you're being honest with yourself and you're being authentic. You're authentically showing up as yourself.
And another part of this is saying, if somebody speaks to you and says, you know, I really feel that you're the one to help me, and you don't feel that you say to them, instead of trying to solve their problems, instead of showing up in a professional way, listen to that intuition. As though. Actually, I don't feel like we're a right fit. Just be honest straight away. That felt really important to come up as well. Okay, gorgeous.
So we've covered allowing yourself to be imperfect. We've covered what vulnerability feels like and what it means and what I'd like you to do now.
And you may have some tears coming up, and I just like to have a little conversation about tears. So as empaths and as highly sensitive people, I mentioned before that I was sobbing my heart out earlier and I allowed it to come up.
I got myself through it and to the other side instead of trying to put any labels on it.
So when we're in a state of, you know, the three Fs, the fight, flight, freeze, when there's change going on and we can get very short of breath, and when we're not breathing properly, that can bring on, as we all know, that can bring on tears, that can bring on panic attacks, that can bring on anxiety.
So I'm going to take you through a gentle process that if anything like that comes up, you just take yourself away from a situation and you're really kind and compassionate to yourself. So when tears show up, it can often be that we're releasing other people's energy.
So, for example, I've been away for three or four days in somewhere that I don't usually live. I've met lots of different people. I was in a city, and I'm not usually in a city.
I'M usually in the countryside and you know, I have, I have my control around me, I have my nature, etc. So forth. And, you know, I also had a long drive, not that you would know that I also had a long drive.
And I was saying to myself, right, okay, I had the day, you know, I prepared what I needed to prepare on the computer yesterday. I was all day on the computer yesterday, so we're going to record today.
And that was when I started crying because my body, and my body was saying, I'm exhausted. And I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried and I realized as I was crying it was a reset. So when we have tears, sometimes it's just to reset us.
Sometimes. Absolutely.
It's to feel the very, very deep emotions, sometimes it's to bring things up and sometimes we have inadvertently taken something on that's not ours.
So an example of this was I stopped off a little village on the way back and one of the very beautiful people that I met, I felt something in their heart very, very deeply. And when that happens energetically, if it's something that I'm supposed to be there to help with, that happens.
And if it's something that I'm supposed to transmute, that happens.
So it's just reminding myself, it was reminding myself that the crying wasn't necessarily mine, the tears weren't necessarily for any reason of anything that I had to do or anything that I've done or not done and that I'm safe. I've gone through with this one before. We are safe. And it's just a physical reaction of my body releasing energy that's not mine.
So it's really important that if we're in a situation like that is getting ourselves into a calm place is not start trying to label, and I know this is easier said than done, is not trying to label, well, why am I crying? Was all right a minute ago. And, you know, I understand when somebody's energy is not mine and when it's my own.
As our sensitivities are getting stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger, we are feeling so much more as the world is going further towards the Divine Feminine, for us to be able to balance our gifts are getting stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger.
This is why I'm here, to talk about my experiences, to talk about what's happened all the way along, to share with you what I now know works with me so you don't have to go through the angst and the trial and error and the on the Floor and the up and down. So you're held and you're heard. That's why I'm doing this.
So what I would really invite you to do is when anything's happening and you're perhaps having convulsions of tears is just allow it to come through, allow it to happen. Don't push it down and don't label it, feel into it afterwards. Just allow the whole reaction to happen. And if you feel.
Because often it can be ancestral as well, and I'm going to talk about this another time. Often it can be ancestral. It can be patterns that are eons and eons and eons and eons down our family tree that haven't been healed.
And we have come here to stop it. We have come here to heal it. So oftentimes we can feel much deeper emotions. Whereas. And it's not comparison, it's just we're all very different.
And whereas for other people, it's not normal if you like to feel so much, for us, it is so normal.
And where we've been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing down how deep we go, because we were told not to cry, because we were told not to be so sensitive, because we felt it was wrong and we created those limiting beliefs, we haven't really been embracing and feeling all of that sensitivity.
So when we get to a point where we start opening up to it and we're not using smoke screens, we're not using addictions, we're not using food or alcohol or sex or toxic relationships, and we. We've got ourselves to a neutral point where we're starting to get to know who we are.
It's very, very likely that very strong emotions are going to be coming up. That very strong reactions.
Emotions, yes, Reactions are going to be coming up because our body is just like, whoa, okay, yeah, let's get rid of that one. Let's get a rat one. Let's get rid of that one. Because we can do it instantly now.
Whereas before we would push it down, push it down, push it out, push it down, push it down, push it out, push it down for years and years and years, decades, however long, for it then to burst up and it to come up as either an emotional trauma or a physical trauma that we then start navigating.
When we get to this point of acceptance, it's really massively important to remember that we've been pretending to be somebody else all the way along. And there's going to be a little bit of resistance when we start expressing vulnerability, mainly from ourselves. Okay.
So it felt very, very strongly to talk about that today.
And what I'd really like to do is if you're driving and listening to this stop, because we're going to go into a very, very gentle process, I'm just going to take you on a beautiful connection with your heart. Okay?
So if you're using machinery or you're going for a walk whilst you're listening to this, go and find a tree somewhere if you can, or if you can't, just pause and come back to this.
So what I would like you to do, my gorgeous, is just get yourself in a really comfortable space and uncross your arms and legs unless you're in the lotus position and just feel by already just taking that step of just, this is my moment. Your body has just gone, oh. The shoulders have lowered.
Your breathing is automatically becoming more and more relaxed because your mind and your soul and your body are all thanking you for just giving yourself a break. For not, oh, I've got to do this in a minute. Oh, I haven't done that. Just be in this moment. This is your moment, my gorgeous.
Now, very gently, I just like you to bow your head and close those gorgeous eyes. And then just very gently lift your chin up again, open your eyes and look up and just count to three. One, two, three. And close your eyes.
Now, what I would like you to do is to have absolutely no expectations of what's going to happen. I would like you just to surrender to this moment. I would like you to feel you deserve to surrender to this moment. It's okay not to know what's next.
It's okay to cry. It's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay for your body to have a physical reaction to change. It's okay to ask for help.
It's okay for others to see your vulnerability. It's okay not to be 100% stoic all the time. It's okay not to have the answers for every single person that you meet. It's okay.
So now in this gorgeous space, I'd like you just to place your right hand on your heart and just feel how you're already taking a beautiful, deep, deep breath in and filling your entire being and your entire body because it's okay. You're relaxed. You're out of that sympathetic system. You're into your parasympathetic system.
And this is where you start nurturing yourself, my gorgeous. This is where you start nurturing your gifts. This is the place that you start singing from. This is the place that you start Writing from.
This is the place that you start sewing from, drawing from painting from whatever that is. This is the place where you start working with divination. This is the place where you start working with herbs.
This is the place where you start working with essential oils. This is the place where you start learning to use your hands with massage, with woodwork. This is your moment.
And what I would really love you to feel is whenever there's a situation where there's anxiety and there's tears, remember this moment. Remember that all that is happening is to get you to this moment. It's a reset.
So you can be reset and you can be in this beautiful moment and accept all the gorgeous gifts, shadows, lights that you are. And as you're in this moment, this is when you can start accepting your gifts. You can start accepting imperfectionism.
You can start accepting nothing's under control. And this is how you move forward. With grace, with compassion, with a love for yourself.
Because before we help others, before we show up as that shoulder to cry on, before we have the solutions for many, many others, it's so important to show up for ourselves. Okay, so I'm going to leave you just to feel into that. It's just a very, very gentle space. We haven't gone deep, deep, deep. That's coming soon.
This is just to get you into a beautiful relaxed state.
And you've got this, you've got this and you've got just this little, these gentle words that you can listen to and repeat over and over and over just to bring yourself back. And it's so simple. It's just talking to yourself with kindness and compassion and honesty and authenticity.
It's being completely honest with where you are and how you're feeling. Allowing and accepting. That's where you are.
Letting that all up and out and then just being this beautiful space where you can start nurturing and accepting your gifts. Okay? So thank you so much for joining me. I really hope that helped you.
Please do get in touch with me if there's anything you would like me to cover for now. My gorgeous, wishing you so much love. Here is to your self acceptance. Here is to your self empowerment.
And here is to you living your most authentic, fabulous life. That's the best way for you. So much love. Ho.