Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.
~ Lao Tzu
Dear Springhouse community,
To be human is to be vulnerable. It is our natural state. Unfortunately, we have created a culture where it is easy to forget that fact. If we hope to live in a more connected world, it is important that we learn how to be vulnerable and care for that vulnerability. As much as this practice can be awkward, uncomfortable, and even scary, it can also be life-giving.
Before Springhouse, I was invited into places to guide people in the practice of being vulnerable – places like hospitals, cancer centers, schools, churches, colleges, police departments, and prisons. I would extend the invitation to be vulnerable through dance and movement, creative expression of all kinds, and courageous conversations. This invitation was often met with resistance, mostly because the practice of intentionally inviting vulnerability was unfamiliar and, therefore, often awkward and scary.
One time, I led a movement exercise with a group of educators in Atlanta, GA. The invitation was to get out of your chair and walk around the space together with about 75 other people attending the conference. As we walked, I invited people to do different things like make shapes with their bodies, stand face-to-face with someone else with their eyes closed, or move at different speeds around the space. The purpose of this exercise was to invite people out of their comfort zones and do something different as a way to practice being vulnerable. After the exercise, we met in small groups to talk about our experiences. I led one of those small groups and invited people to share about their experience as honestly as they could. When it came time for the educator sitting next to me to share, he shared that his experience was pointless, and he called the whole thing “gimmicky” and the dumbest thing he had ever done.
At that point in my vocation, I had invited many people, all over the world, into the embodied practice of being vulnerable. I had gotten used to resistance and to the discomfort, and even fear, these exercises can bring up. I took a deep breath, listened to this educator share about how much he did not like the experience, and we continued to go around the circle. After our time together, he told me he was sorry if he hurt my feelings, but he was just being honest. I told him there was no need to apologize and that I understood. I told him that leading these kinds of things was what I was called to do, and it was vulnerable for me, too. I told him that as much as he didn’t like participating, I often didn’t like leading either — because it was vulnerable. I told him it was my calling, and I was going to do it as long as I was called, regardless of it being awkward and difficult. We ended our conversation respectfully and went our separate ways.
The next day, I was sitting at a table by myself, eating my lunch. I saw out of the corner of my eye someone coming over, carrying a chair over his head. It was this man from the group the day before, coming over to put his chair down right next to mine. He asked if he could eat lunch with me. We sat together, and he began to share his struggles — with faith, addiction, and the feeling of being lost as an adult — with me. There were some tears, and I mostly listened. At the end of the conference, we hugged, shared our surprising love for one another, and haven’t seen each other again since.
When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we allow life to flow through us. This experience in Atlanta, like many, taught me that inviting people, who have structured their lives to minimize vulnerability, into vulnerability is challenging work, and I must not take the reactions to the invitation personally. I have also learned that this work of practicing vulnerability is much better done in longer-term communities, where the vulnerability can be cared for by the community over the long haul. After dropping into organizations and communities for brief moments to foster vitality, I worked with Semester at Sea, a study abroad program where roughly 600-700 people travel around the world on a ship for 4 months. That was when I learned the power of intentionally practicing vulnerability within the context of a longer-term community. It made perfect sense that years later I would be a part of founding a long-term place to practice a different way of living, one where we practice being connected to ourselves, to each other, and to our place and world. Connection is one of our deepest values at Springhouse, and we cannot experience connection without vulnerability.
Some of us are more aware of our vulnerability than others, for different reasons. Maybe we have had someone close to us die, faced our own mortality in some way, given birth to a child, have difficulty making basic ends meet, or live in a place where violence is more of a norm. Whether we are aware of it or not, learning how to care for that vulnerability is still a practice, and we need more places to intentionally practice being vulnerable if we are to live in a more connected world. Learning how to care for our own vulnerability involves building stronger relationships with our bodies and learning how to welcome dissonance and discomfort, and it is an opportunity to trust each other more deeply.
We practice being vulnerable at Springhouse – people of all ages connect through celebration, honest conversations, using our imaginations, learning about the pain and possibility of this world, and expressing how we honestly feel. We live well when we remember the gift of this life and practice living it fully. We become stronger when we practice letting life flow through us. There are many ways to practice this at Springhouse – our online seasonal meditations are coming up, and our K-12 school is open for 2025-2026 enrollment! We also have apprenticeships that invite people for any amount of time to visit and learn more about who we are, and, if you are local, join us at our weekly Community Roundtable. We hope to see you along the way.
May we welcome our vulnerability as a strength and as the doorway to a more connected world,
Jenny
