Vulnerability — the superpower you didn't know you needed
By embracing vulnerability, you get to meet your real self, develop deeper, healthy relationships and live a meaningful life.
We are born naked, literally exposed and vulnerable in every sense of the word. As kids, we shared everything, exposed every joy, pain, anything.
We couldn't wait to come home and tell our parents every single thing that happened in school. We told family, friends even strangers all we were thinking or knew.
Then something changed. Somewhere during adolescence (the transition period between childhood and adulthood), something or someone made us feel wary, foolish or even stupid for being vulnerable.
And just like that, we stopped being vulnerable and started erecting barricades as a way to protect ourselves, to look perfect like we have it all figured out, prevent ourselves from getting hurt or feeling ashamed or exposed.
The older we got, the more walls we constructed as vulnerability became a term associated with weakness or fear of being hurt, betrayed or taken advantage of.
And who can blame us? Living in this world, in certain areas like Lagos, Nigeria, requires a level of toughness to make it or so we tell ourselves or what we hear people say.
But by making tough, impenetrable, never letting anyone in we rob ourselves of a chance to have deep connections not just with others but with ourselves too.
I particularly love the way empathy writer and researcher Dr Brené Brown describes it in her book Daring Greatly.
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, accountability, and authenticity,” she writes. “Vulnerability isn’t good or bad. Vulnerability is the core of all emotions and feelings.”
And she is absolutely right. Vulnerability is the missing link, its what prevents us from truly knowing ourselves which in turn stops from having authentic, deep relationships.
By putting up walls around ourselves we have managed to hide our true nature from others all the while hoping someone, anyone would see the amazing being hidden within. In an attempt to avoid pain, hurt, so-called weakness, we lose intimacy and close relationships.
That's we get so excited when we meet people who really see us. Not our tough exterior, the people we are pretending to be to ‘survive,’ but who we really are on the inside.
I don't know about you but for me, it feels like I come alive on the few occasions when this happened. But for that to happen, those special few had to break through my barriers and I had to allow myself become vulnerable to let them in to meet the real me.
Doing this requires strength and bravery which is why Brown calls vulnerability “our greatest measure of courage,” in her book — Rising Strong.
It demands that you strip yourself bare sometimes not knowing if it's worth it or how it will be received. It demands showing parts of yourself you are not always proud of or parts that people have convinced you are to be hidden away.
“Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.” — Brown.
How to be vulnerable
Start small. Replace ‘scripted’ conversations filled with closed off, safe questions like ‘have you eaten? hope you are good’ with open-ended questions and honest chats, not just with others but yourself too.
Learn to open up slowly, share more and be deliberate about expressing exactly what you are feeling or thinking with yourself and others. But do this with boundaries.
Contrary to popular belief, vulnerability is not sharing any and everything to anyone willing to listen, it requires boundaries.
As Brown puts it, “Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them.”
Find your person/tribe and slowly practice being vulnerable with them. The more vulnerable you are, the more trust you build and stronger your relationships become.
What’s on the other side?
At first, you will feel raw because its something you are not used to. You might be tempted to stop but I encourage you to push through until you get used to it.
Author Mark Coleman describes this process in his book Make Peace with Your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You from Your Inner Critic.
“This feeling of rawness is key to working with vulnerability,” he writes. “They often feel like one and the same thing. The challenge is to find a way to be comfortable feeling the innate vulnerability of being human. If we can hold our vulnerability with a loving attention, the painful feelings can unfold and slowly move through us.”
For me, vulnerability has become a major game-changer. I have seen my relationship with myself, others and God change for the better as I started to open up and truly let people in. It pushed me out of my comfort zone, where it’s safe and cosy (but we all know nothing great ever happens there), but i did it anyway.
Vulnerability encourages you to abandon those shallow relationships with no time for intimate conversation or deep emotional connection for ones with people you can talk to honestly and truly be yourself with.
I know its easier to hide within your walls but the price is simply too much to pay since it means walking away from the very thing that makes life worth living.
That's why I'm encouraging you to come to this other side where the biggest gains and breakthroughs happen as you embrace your vulnerability. The more you do it, the more aware you become of your pain, the trauma you refused to deal with and you slowly start healing until you become whole.
This version of you is not broken, not afraid of trying new things (with love, work, food, you name it), stops worrying about what others think, is kind, compassionate and able to have healthy, deep relationships.
Embracing vulnerability helps you confront your emotions instead of burying it, gives you permission to be your authentic self with nothing to hide, stops your from comparing yourself to others, helps you accept that you are flawed, complicated yet beautifully and wonderfully made.
Vulnerability ends up becoming the superpower you never knew you needed.
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