Vulnerable

One of our many goals for Someone ToTell It To in 2025 is to publish and share more stories about the reasons that so many people reach out to our listeners to be heard.  

The impact of stories can be incredibly powerful - to touch others’ hearts, to to inspire others’ lives, to help others to know that they are not alone in their own challenges, to teach others about the life-changing impact of listening, and to show the profound beauty of how compassion and empathy can affect the way others feel heard, validated, and loved.     

We aim to collect and share more and more stories of those whom we have listened to, from those who give their permission to have their stories told so that maybe, just maybe, their stories can help Someone else find hope, healing, and wholeness in their stories, too. 

It takes courage and vulnerability for anyone to tell their stories, which are often painful, often messy, and often expose them in ways they’d rather not be exposed. But when just about any of us can summon the courage and take the scary, risky step of being vulnerable, surprising and burden-lifting changes will happen. We can feel lighter. We can feel more hopeful. We can find clarity. We can find answers. We can see light emerging where darkness previously descended. 

During the last three months of 2024, we began sharing the poetry of one of the people our listeners have been supporting over several years. She writes with beauty, simplicity, and clarity of purpose. She writes to heal. She writes to grow. She is grateful to share what she has written, for all the reasons we mentioned above. She knows that it helps her to write and share. She knows that it can help others when she does.

So, we share another of her poems today. Just maybe it can strike a chord in Someone who reads it, and just maybe it shines a light on Someone's heart and spirit where deep darkness has fallen. 

Vulnerable

What does being vulnerable

really mean?

Most of the time,

I think most people think

it means being powerless,

defenseless or weak.

Most of the time

most of me worries

if my deep emotions

and my sensitive nature

make me somewhat soft

in a world that runs hard.

Most of the time

most of me wonders

if my desire to be kind,

considerate and polite

make me seem gullible

in a world that appears

to undervalue these virtues.

Except, what if it doesn’t?

What if these qualities

just make me… me?

What if they’re exactly

what makes me unique?