How I learned to be vulnerable in public and let in more love

In December 2013 I sat amongst over 300 people at Christian Pankhurst’s Heart Summit in Holland. I felt a part of me wanting to run screaming out of that huge circular room filled with all these strangers learning to feel more and be present in their hearts.

There was a part of me so afraid to be seen and to feel embarrassed or not good enough or unloveable.

The part of me that liked to keep everything in my environment under ‘control’ so that I didn’t need to feel vulnerable or feel what I didn’t like to feel was totally overwhelmed and freaking out.

As a highly sensitive empath everything in that room felt amplified 100 times.

I wanted out of there. I wanted to be alone to sort myself out and put everything back under control before coming back into the space, showing up just how I like to be!!

Have you ever felt like this?

In that moment, I didn’t leave. I put up my hand.

As the microphone got passed across the room and the cameras found me and beamed my face up on the big screens and out to hundreds more people on live streaming, I thought my heart would jump out of my chest. I was shaking. I felt faint. I wanted to crawl under a chair and hide.

“How do I feel everything that I am currently feeling and not run away to hide or sort myself out on my own?” I asked with a trembling voice to the silent room.

Christian responded with, “Hmmmm. Take us in.” This was the invitation to stand there with all that attention on me and feel what I was feeling.

I couldn’t do it. I was in overwhelm. I didn’t want to feel this. I wanted out.

I looked around the room for 30 seconds. I said a very quick and polite, “thank you”, smiled and pretended I was better and enlightened.

He giggled and said, “Too fast…… Come up.”

OMG! I was now standing at the front of the stage in the spotlights, my legs literally trembling beneath me.

I was not there to give a performance. No, that would have been easier. I was standing there as me, in all my vulnerability, with nothing to offer, just being seen.

As someone who always went bright red in the face with the slightest focus on me, you can understand that this was one hell of an experience.

Here's a picture of that moment. 

Christian then did something amazing. He didn’t coach me and tell me “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You can do it. Be confident…”

He stood back to back with me so that I could literally feel his support and love in my body (see the main photo). My nervous system started to relax. I was getting the new message that “I am safe. I am not alone.”

“How does it feel?” he asked. “Yeh, I can do this” I let out a little sigh, my legs still trembling. Strangely this was a vision I had seen in a dream a few months earlier.

“What do you see?” Christian called out to the audience.

“Courage” – “Beauty” – “Vulnerability” – “Love” – “Wisdom” – “Radiance”…. people started shouting out from around the room.

I started to cry, my chin quivering (yes, a little embarrassing!). I was letting in their love.

By feeling safe, I had softened just enough in my body to feel what was really present.

There was a very young part of me being held and healed in that moment. A young Georgina who had once felt very unsafe and overwhelmed in the world.

Perhaps she had felt silly or wrong or bad at some point when she did share herself freely.

Without learning another way to cope, young Georgina had shut down her capacity to feel and express and avoided situations that would trigger this pain.

After a while, Christian moved away. I wobbled at first but quickly found my feet. I could still feel his support energetically at a distance. Now I felt good to stand on my own two feet, more solid in my legs.

“We need each other to come into our greatness” he concluded.

Boom! That landed.

Yes, we need each other to come into our greatness. And we need safety, support and love to come into our greatness. We are beyond the time of each to their own, competing to survive and get ahead.

We are all great, each with unique and immense gifts to share. All parts of the whole. It is when we acknowledge and love all the parts of ourselves that we can truly shine.

It is when we acknowledge, respect and love the greatness of each other, and the totality and integrality of all things, that we will finally be able to bring solutions to the problems of today.

As you can imagine, this was a profound moment of healing, transformation and awakening for me.

I had stayed fully present to the discomfort and fear in order create a new experience in my mind and body. Now rather than shutting down and running away I could trust the wisdom of staying present, asking for support if necessary, and feeling all that is there.

Yes, to open vulnerably to be seen and to feel this much is flipping scary. And yes, it is profoundly healing and transformative when we do this consciously, in safe spaces, and are met by love. We literally create new experiences, memories and pathways in the brain and nervous system.

My friends, as conscious awakening adults we get to choose this!

We can take responsibility for and honour our greatness by seeking out such experiences.

And we can choose to create safe, loving experiences for our kids, our loved ones, and all the people we come into contact with. We often lack patience or forget to acknowledge and love these very young parts in adults and young people. We all have them.

Let’s support each other to come into our greatness together, with the gentleness and respect that we choose to offer to our own inner child.

Blessings and love,
Georgina xxx

Update: After posting this blog Christian Pankhurst so kindly searched out that video from the Heart Summit and edited it to make it available to me and others for more inspiration. I had not seen it for years! You can view the video here on Facebook.