Being Chased By Life’s Tornados

My Taoist Truths on Safety and Vulnerability

Let’s be real: most of us are obsessed with safety…..

……Not the seatbelt kind. I’m talking about the emotional bubble-wrap kind. The “don’t-get-too-close,” “play-it-safe,” “never-let-‘em-see-you-sweat” brand of self-preservation that convinces us that the more armored we are, the more protected we’ll be from pain, betrayal, or looking like a fool at the wrong dinner party.

But here’s the cosmic punchline: The more we try to not get hurt, the more we suffer. And nobody would laugh harder at this than Zhuangzi, ancient Taoist trickster and professional reality disrupter.

Zhuangzi didn’t hand out feel-good, bumper-sticker wisdom. He gave us flying fish, talking skulls, and giant birds turning into dragons mid-air. His point? Life is weird, wild, and way too fluid for your carefully curated safety plan. So if you’re trying to white-knuckle your way through it, trying to “manage” vulnerability like it’s a marketing strategy—you’re the frog in the well, baby. And the sea is laughing.

I know, because I was that frog.

I thought emotional safety came from building walls higher than a New York therapist’s hourly rate. Keep your distance, avoid rejection, be “chill,” never say too much, too soon, or too honestly. But the Tao has a funny way of poking holes in your fortress until it becomes a colander. And suddenly, all the stuff you were afraid of? It’s dripping in.

Eventually, I realized something uncomfortably liberating: vulnerability is safety—just not the version we’ve been sold.

The Tao isn’t a GPS. It doesn’t hand you a blueprint for “How to Be Untouchable.” It whispers, “Flow, fool.” It teaches that water wins not by being strong, but by being soft, adaptive, and never clinging to its container. It floods. It seeps. It becomes.

Zhuangzi would say: stop trying to win at safety. Start dancing with the damn storm.

Because here’s the Taoist mic-drop—vulnerability isn’t the opposite of safety. It’s the doorway to it. True safety is not being invulnerable. It’s being unshakably yourself, even when the winds howl and your fly is down.

Here are five irreverent, hard-earned, Tao-soaked takeaways from my own stumble-sway-surrender into this paradox:

🤨 Safety isn’t found in armor. It’s found in presence.

I’ve spent years trying to protect myself from being “too seen.” Spoiler: it doesn’t work. What actually helped? Being fully in the moment. Like, eyes-wide, ego-down, heart-thumping-honest here. Because the present moment doesn’t give a damn about your projections or fears. It’s raw, yes—but it’s real. And real is where safety actually lives.

🤨 Vulnerability is a spiritual prank with incredible timing.

Every time I’ve let myself get really real—said the honest thing, showed the unfiltered truth, let the tears fall in public—I felt exposed. And then I felt…free. Like I’d finally stopped cosplaying as a controlled human and just was. Vulnerability is the Tao’s way of cracking you open so the light can get in. Or at least so you stop suffocating.

🤨 If you’re rigid, you’re breakable. Period.

I tried to be a fortress. I ended up a wreck. Because life will knock on your door like a drunk roommate at 3 a.m.—chaotic, inconvenient, and full of surprises. If you’re brittle, you shatter. If you’re bamboo, you bend. The Tao digs bamboo. So loosen up.

🤨 People aren’t your threat. Your fear is.

Turns out, most of the time I labeled someone “unsafe,” they were just poking the parts of me I hadn’t made peace with yet. They were mirrors, not monsters. Want to feel safe with people? Do the uncomfortable inner work. Strip off the ego-cloak and stare at the awkward. That’s where your safety net begins.

🤨 Drop the shell. Grow some damn wings.

Here’s what shocked me: the more I stopped trying to be “safe,” the more I became myself. And that self? It can fly. It’s weird. It’s tender. It’s a little inappropriate sometimes. But it’s me. Vulnerability isn’t about losing control. It’s about losing the illusion that you ever had any.

So what now? What do we do in a world that feels increasingly like it’s held together with duct tape and denial? We lean in. We unclench. We trust that there’s wisdom in unraveling.

Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly and woke up unsure if he was a man or a moth. That’s Taoism in a nutshell: you don’t need to be sure. You just need to be.

So just go ahead and take the leap. Cry in public. Tell the truth when your voice shakes. Love without a backup plan. It’s not safe in the conventional sense. But it’s the only real safety there is.

Let the wind blow. You’re not broken. You’re becoming.

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Diamond Michael Scott

aka The Chocolate Taoist