Nurturing and Vulnerability: The Power of Healing Our Wounded Child

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

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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