Keeping Her Keys
Connecting to spirits, summoning the powers of correspondences, and petitioning deities for their help all require being open to these forces. Vulnerability is necessary when we open up that personal magic circle of ours to others, whether they are embodied or energetic. Like all types of energy, the essence of being vulnerable is neither good nor bad. It’s how we work with our anxieties about openness that determine whether it’s empowering or weakening.
Vulnerability is a state of being that is necessary for growth in life and witchery. The complement to shielding, intentional vulnerability is about choosing what and who we connect with. Enacting our personal sovereignty through integration of the Three Selves requires internal openness. When we take this personal development work to the spiritual level, integration with our spirit self occurs. The separation between our everyday self and our eternal self can be mighty difficult to overcome. When we are in the midst of such transformation, it can be incredibly challenging. This is because spiritual upgrades are all about internal vulnerability. Shadow exploration and healing requires vulnerability. As we open up to our own truth, this burgeoning openness can spill over into our interactions with others, material and mystical.
Vulnerability is like all energy, neither good nor bad. It’s what we do with our vulnerability that matters. When our shadow self is in control, we are unhealthily open: too shut down, exploding everywhere, or vacillating between the two. We are indiscriminate in our connections, rigidly control them, and jump back and forth between these two energetic poles with dizzying speed. The shadow self serves the purpose of protecting us during dangerous times, but typically persists long after the risk of harm passes. What’s left behind is feeling that any vulnerability is a bad idea. But the vulnerability of the shadow is weakness, rather than intentionally choosing to open up, to connect and to take carefully considered risks. When we switch to authenticity, all these things become empowering.
Courage Isn’t The Lack of Fear
Healthy vulnerability is the energy of the sovereign witch: choosing the risks taken and understanding our own fears. Courage is never the lack of fear but being scared shitless and doing it anyway. Just not in a reckless manner. Mindfulness, contemplation, and planning are all part of effective witchery. Awareness of being vulnerable, our reactions to feeling threatened, anxious, and fearful, is part of the process of knowing ourselves.
Feeling vulnerable implies that we perceive a threat, real or imagined. Entirely natural since we are always vulnerable to certain things. Letting ourselves experience vulnerability in a mindful way reveals that it we control it rather than anxiously trying to avoid feeling this way. As witches, we can work with the energy of vulnerability to transcend our fears, boldly going forward while acknowledging our anxieties, achieving our objectives. This is the paradox of vulnerability: it can either weaken or empower us.
Magickal Applications And Considerations
Regarding magickal applications of vulnerability, there’s many ways to use this force for our workings. The panicky feelings of confronting our fears can be used to motivate us to take risks, transmuting what debilitates into what activates. When we are truly vulnerable to the whims of others, resistance witchery where we intentionally cast spells that give us strength and limit the powers of others demonstrates healthy vulnerability. Witchcraft is inherently dangerous, we should feel vulnerable when we are opening ourselves to new rituals, expanding our consciousness through trance, and seeking out new spirit guides. The awareness of being exposed permits us to adapt our shields. Toxic spirits are just as common as miasmic humans. Practicing healthy vulnerability by developing clear and concise boundaries helps to prevent toxic attachments of all kinds.
Letting The Right Ones In: The Power of Vulnerability
The more we understand our personal vulnerabilities, the better we can see them in others. Moreover, the better we are to perceive true threats and dismiss false ones. On a spiritual level, the better we become at perceiving the deities and entities that we encounter. We can develop boundaries that let the right ones in, rather than being overwhelmed by energies, attracting harmful ones and generally being spiritually promiscuous. Perhaps baneful witchery has been taboo for some because of unhealthy vulnerability resulting from poor boundaries and brittle shielding. This leads to my final point: healthy vulnerability is incredibly empowering. It puts us as the most potent being rather than dependence on others, corporeal or etheric. We create our boundaries, manage our shields, and choose who and what we open our personal magick circle to.
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