Vulnerability - What is Behind Your Door?
Vulnerability
What is Behind Your Door?
Vulnerability: What’s Behind Your Door?
My wife and I just returned from a month in Mexico City: Coyoacan to be exact. Coyoacan is a small district where Hernan Cortez first settled to stage his overthrow of the Aztecs. It’s about six miles south of downtown Mexico City and is home to museums, cathedrals, narrow cobblestone streets, and beautiful garage doors.
Yes, garage doors. I know that might seem odd to point out. But we’ve stayed in that village three times now and the garage doors are something that always stands out to me. They are amazing.
You see, as in most of Latin America, houses are surrounded by a fence or the street side of the house is right on the sidewalk creating a barrier to enter. It’s not like in the United States where we often have a large lawn open to the public. That’s unheard of in Mexico.
Doors Protect What’s Vulnerable
This design is probably due to two things: one being Spanish architecture where homes often feature an internal courtyard that the house surrounds. The other is more practical: if your house was more open you’d be more vulnerable to theft. So, the doors offer protection from intruders.
When you walk down the street you are walking by walls, doors, and garage doors. In Coyoacan, many garage doors are quite ornate and a symbol of sorts, representing the owner. We walked by many doors that were being sanded and refinished to keep up their appearance. This last month I stopped to take a picture of many of these doors. I’m showing only three of them here.
Doors Shut You Out
I found myself peering into these courtyards the moment one of the doors opened for a car to leave the premises. They were typically filled with beautifully landscaped gardens. But sometimes the doors hid a small patio only big enough for a small car and the overflow from the house. I found myself frustrated with the owners for keeping me from seeing what was behind their doors.
The more I thought about this, the more it became apparent to me that this is true with people too. We often have beautiful “doors” (an outward persona) that might impress people. These doors protect us from people taking advantage of us but they also might hide what we are ashamed of as well as keep out what might help us.
Consider Your Door
This protection is wise to some degree. But it’s good to consider your “door.” Let me offer some questions to ponder:
What is the image you are projecting?
Is it protecting something that you fear losing? If so, what is that and why is that?
Are you trying to hide something that you fear exposing? What is that?
Are there people that you are trying to keep out of your life? If so, who and why?
Is there beauty within you that you ought to be sharing with others?
Or, is there something hidden that needs to be brought into the lights?
And finally, do you spend more time on perfecting your “door” than what’s inside the door?
Consider the Door of Others
On the other side of the door it’s important to realize that everyone has a door of protection. The more vulnerable people feel, the bigger and thicker the door will be. Don’t assume that the door is impenetrable, meaning, don’t let the door scare you away from people. Maybe they just need you to build trust with them before they let you in. You might have to stand at the door and knock for a bit before they have the confidence to let you in.
My simple point is that you have something good inside of you to share with others. Be careful that you aren’t so concerned with protecting yourself that you rob people of the chance to experience the best of you.
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