My mom has dementia.

Dementia is making her increasingly vulnerable. She needs care, patience, reassurance, and help with things she once managed so gracefully and effortlessly.

And lately, I’m noticing something that is difficult to admit.

Her vulnerability activates MANY parts of me.

And it is not always tenderness.

Sometimes it is aversion.

Sometimes irritation.

Sometimes a strong feeling of, Please don’t need so much from us.

That isn’t the easiest thing to say out loud.

We like to believe that another person’s vulnerability will automatically open our hearts. Sometimes it does. But sometimes it touches places inside us that have never felt safe being vulnerable themselves.

As I become curious about the part of me that pulls away from neediness and vulnerability in the people I love, I ask it:

What are you afraid would happen if you didn’t react this way?

Its answer is clear:

Vulnerability means helplessness.

Helplessness means weakness.

And being weak is scary.

Wow.

This part places vulnerability, helplessness, and weakness into one category—and labels all of it dangerous.

So I ask where it learned that vulnerability means weakness. And sure enough, it has very valid reasons for adopting that belief. I won’t get into the story here because the details are not what matter.

What matters is that I can suddenly see its reaction – its limiting, unhelpful belief – differently.

The aversion is not proof that I don’t love my mother.

It is protection.

This part isn’t pushing away my mother. It is trying to push away everything her vulnerability brings up inside me.

And I realize that before I ask this part to soften toward my mother, I first need to soften toward IT.

Sometimes compassion does not begin with immediately opening our hearts to the vulnerable person in front of us.

Sometimes, it begins by opening our hearts to the parts of us having a reaction to it all FIRST.

❤