What holds us back from experiencing greater intimacy?
Once upon a time, the sun and a storm cloud held a great debate on who was more powerful. As they argued, the storm cloud caught a glimpse of an unsuspecting man who was walking just below.
Immediately, the storm cloud puffed up and challenged the sun to a competition to prove who was indeed more powerful. His thunderous voice issued the challenge by saying, “I bet I can remove that man’s jacket much faster than you can!”
Once the sun hesitantly agreed, the storm cloud immediately expanded ten times its original size and began blasting this poor man with the most intense gusts of wind. As the storm cloud relentlessly huffed and puffed, the man braced himself and wrapped his jacket even more firmly around himself. And when the storm cloud was finally out of breath and the winds subsided, the man still had his jacket on. But it was now on even tighter than before.
After the deflated storm cloud whimpered away, the sun began to slowly rise from the horizon. As the sun’s warmth gently enveloped the shivering man, he began to relax. Within mere moments, the jacket was swiftly and easily discarded. The sun was the clear winner that day.
The point of this story is to show that true vulnerability and intimacy can never be accessed through brute force and authoritarian aggression. Instead, only a warm and safe environment is able to lead a person to shed off their protective layers to reveal their true and inner selves.
