Why write a blog on vulnerability?

As I write these words, with the intention of publishing them for the world to read, I struggle to answer my own question. My reason for writing about vulnerability reflects my own experiences of vulnerability in the past, and one truth stands out: the times that I’ve been my most vulnerable with the people closest to me have been the times where I’ve felt the most myself, the most known, the most at peace, and also, the most challenged and stretched, sometimes to the point of feeling unable to bear the exposure. All. At. Once.

So…fun topic, huh?

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I became curious about vulnerability’s impact on mental health. As I was contemplating and reading about vulnerability, I started to feel overwhelmed with the complexity of this topic and thought it would be easier for me to write about it if I broke it into separate posts. Today in part 1, I’ll be looking at what vulnerability is, what it looks like in an everyday, practical setting, and how our early experiences shape how we view and practice vulnerability.

So vulnerability…what is it exactly?

In her book Daring Greatly, Brene Brown, a prominent researcher on the topics of shame and vulnerability, defines vulnerability as daring “to show up and let ourselves be seen.” Okay, that sounds easy enough. Right? Maybe not. Brown reveals why letting ourselves be seen is scary by referring to Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of vulnerability: “capable of being wounded” and “open to attack or damage.”

Yikes. Who would want to open themselves up to being wounded, attacked, or damaged? How is that not masochistic?

In his book, The Soul of Shame (which I highly recommend!!!), Dr. Curt Thompson explains that we don’t really have the ability to choose whether we’re vulnerable or not. “To be human is to be vulnerable,” Thompson writes. “Vulnerability is not a question of if but rather to what degree.” We all have emotions and feelings – God gave them to us as sources of information in relating to him and to others. In possessing emotions and feelings, we run the risk of experiencing negative emotions and hurt from others. We employ numerous techniques for avoiding the pain of negative emotions: numbing out, blaming others, blaming ourselves, etc. Regardless of whatever technique we use, underneath it all, the original emotion is still there. Thompson explains that it comes down to the question, “not if we are or will be vulnerable but rather how and when we enter into it consciously and intentionally for the sake of creating a world of goodness and beauty.”

How could opening ourselves up to wound, attack, or damage possibly create a world of goodness and beauty? I will expound on this in my next blog post, when I write about what I learned regarding vulnerability’s impact on mental health.

Back to the topic at hand: what is vulnerability not? Well, according to Brown, it is not victory or defeat; it’s both. Vulnerability is “engaging…being all in,” she writes. Despite it’s dictionary definition, vulnerability is also not weakness. Brown points out the difference between weakness and vulnerability by noting that the dictionary defines weakness as “the inability to withstand attack or wounding.” Opening ourselves up to the possibility of being wounded does not mean that we will be wounded or that we will be unable to cope or make it through if we are indeed wounded. Vulnerability does not presuppose weakness.

What does vulnerability look like in an everyday, practical setting? Brown echoes Dr. Thompson’s conclusion that to be human is to be vulnerable. She writes: “The uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”

What does it look like to willingly own my vulnerability? I believe it involves being open to myself and my full range of emotions, both positive and negative. Something did not feel great about that interaction with my friend – what is it that I’m feeling as a result? Anger? Hurt? Fear? Shame? In order to own my openness to being wounded, I must acknowledge when I am actually wounded. This takes courage because negative feelings aren’t typically things we want to experience – they’re unpleasant and sometimes downright excruciating. If we choose to avoid them out of fear, we risk disconnecting from what’s really happening inside of us and outside of us, in our relationships with others.

So, how do we engage our vulnerability? We must engage it with honesty and without judgment. Even if my loved one does something that seems so miniscule, insignificant, and stupid, but still upsets me, I must honestly acknowledge what that behavior stirred up in me. We must also engage our vulnerability without judgment. If I call myself ridiculous or (my favorite) “oversensitive” for feeling a particular way about the small thing my loved one did, then I shame my emotional self, which God created and gifted me with, by casting doubt on it and diminishing its significance.

How do our early experiences shape how we view and practice vulnerability? In thinking about this question, I identified three main observations I’ve made in my personal life and my work with clients.

Observation #1: How our feelings were responded to as children

Angelica was a very emotionally expressive child. She talks about how deeply and passionately she experienced her emotions as a child, and that she didn’t know how to direct her emotional responses, how to cope with them and communicate them. (Most kids don’t.) As a result, she would often cry over seemingly insignificant slights. Her parents, in their best attempts to “calm her down” and “make her feel better” often tried to reason with Angelica, explaining that whatever she was upset about was not that big in the grand scheme of things. As she reflected on these experiences as an adult, Angelica was able to agree with them – her sister borrowing her favorite Barbie without asking was not catastrophic. However, Angelica was inadvertently trained to “reason” with her emotions, to judge if there was logic to experiencing them or not, rather than just acknowledging that they are there. Now, in her relationship with her boyfriend, she found herself questioning the legitimacy of her feelings when he critiqued her physical appearance. Her shame over her boyfriend’s critiques, as well as the inability to trust her own emotions, kept her from opening up to a trusted friend, causing her to feel stuck and believe that this treatment “is just the way it is in relationships.”

Observation #2: The roles we play(ed) in our families

Tim grew up as the oldest child in a chaotic household. Finances were tight and he was often left in charge of his younger brother while his parents worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. His brother would occasionally become angry and aggressive, and Tim would step in to physically restrain him when his dad was not around. Tim hated restraining his brother. Sometimes he would get hurt, and he feared sharing this with his parents because they were already so stressed. Instead, he told himself to “get over it” and be the son his parents needed him to be.

Observation #3: Strategies we’ve developed in order to cope with invalidating responses and inappropriate or lack of boundaries

As a result of Angelica being told that she was “oversensitive,” Angelica learned to measure the validity of her emotions based on others’ reactions and opinions. She became the quintessential “people pleaser” – if others felt good, she felt good and was doing something right. Eventually, she became depressed, as she realized that she could not please people enough to make herself feel good enough. She entered therapy for depression, and she gradually began to own her feelings, and no longer needed to “legitimize” them. As a result, she found it easier to open up with her close friends. Tim entered therapy after experiencing a panic attack at work. He soon discovered that his anxiety was triggered by an internal expectation of perfection – he had to be everything to everyone around him as a result of the caretaking role he took on in his family as a young child. With his therapist, he was able to grieve the position he was put in as a child and his own lack of being cared for by his parents. This enabled him to establish healthy boundaries in his relationships at work.

Vulnerability is a dense topic. I won’t even pretend to scratch the surface. I discovered some interesting insights regarding vulnerability’s impact on mental health and I look forward to sharing those with you in next month’s post!

In the meantime, if you are looking for a safe, non-judgmental place to learn how to be vulnerable and accept your full range of emotions and experiences, I would be honored to walk alongside you on your journey! Give me a call at (314) 392-2895 today.

References

Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly. New York: Avery.

Thompson, C. (2015). The soul of shame. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.