I really recognise this movement between shutting down and longing to stay open. That line about closing off the vulnerable part “to shield it from further harm” feels so honest. It’s such an intelligent protection — and yet, as you say, it can quietly become resistance, avoidance, even control.

What moved me most was the way you describe trust not as an idea but as something embodied — the jaw, the shoulders, the muscles braced for onslaught. That feels real. The nervous system does not open because we tell it to; it opens when it feels safe enough. The fact that you were able to come back to openness more quickly, and that nothing terrible happened, feels like a profound rewiring in action.

I also love how you reclaim vulnerability. Not as weakness, but as participation. As being part of the continent. That echo of John Donne — “It tolls for thee” — sits so powerfully alongside the image of the ocean holding you. Openness to suffering and openness to being held, side by side.

There’s something deeply steady about the way you write this. Snow outside. Shawl around you. No ocean — and yet the ocean still present within. That feels like the quiet work of practice made visible.

Thank you for naming the courage it takes not to become a rock.