Open Heart

I have more questions than things to saw right now, but they sprang up from something a past teacher once told me. I am very expressive, and open, and naïve in a lot of ways, trusting, and taking things at face value, more than some other folx, and much more than Western society sees as acceptable. This was even more pronounced when I was younger. A long time ago, after being involved in ceremony for a few years, this teacher told me that he had doubted whether I was strong enough to last. That, because of my perceived sensitivity, that he perceived me as weak, and too weak for ceremony, too emotional I guess. Ceremony requires that we be open to our emotions, it forces it really, whether we're ready or willing or not. Funny that my emotional openness and expressiveness is what he perceived as the weakness.

The questions that came up right now while I was remembering this experience of being told that my "overly" emotional expressiveness was perceived as weakness, is why is it that society places so much emphasis on being emotionally closed and paints this as "strong", while seeing emotional expression and openness as weak? I can see how sometimes when we are extremely expressive and open that can leave us raw and potentially open to manipulation, that it can lead us to getting pulled in all kinds of different directions all at once, and how those people in our lives that fall off the cliff of mental wellness into the many abysses of mental illness appear to be emotionally and psychologically "overly expressive" or "open" and this can then be connected to a perceived weakness in them. But I also see how our vulnerability, our ability to feel with and in the presence of others in our lives is one of the most powerful ways to connect and help hold space for healing, growth, and empowerment. How our open heart is what allows the healing to happen. Maybe that's why it is painted as weakness, because they don't want us to heal? And maybe the embrace of being so closed is a residue of our ancestors' coping to survive the harshness of oppression, that maybe they had to allow the callouses to grow thick around their hearts and their emotional selves, to survive the pain and hopelessness? 

It might feel easier to close ourselves off, its less work in the beginning, and feels safer. But in the end it adds to our isolation, it literally closes us off to connection and healing. 

That's my ramble for today. I guess I had more to say than questions to pose.