VULNERABILITY — A Weakness or a Strength?

Amy Poehler in her book “Yes, Please” said

“It’s very hard to have ideas. It’s very hard to put yourself out there, and it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do that are the dreamers, the thinkers, and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.”and

You see, oftentimes we have heard people tell us that it is a show of weakness to express vulnerability, that you always have to “man up” “keep your chins high” “don’t be a weakling”, etc. They tell us that when you show weakness, you give people room to hurt you but is that really the truth? Or is it just an attempt to get us to bury the most important part of our humanity?

The truth of the matter is this, the fear of vulnerability is a very common fear experienced by both young and old, Gen z, Millenials and Baby Boomers, etc alike so it is unbiased but come with me, and let’s find out together what it really means to be vulnerable. Let me show you that YOU CAN and should allow yourself to be vulnerable.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE VULNERABLE?

Vulnerability is the feeling of not being in charge, not being in control. It is that zone where uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure exist. It is what you feel when you try something new, leave your comfort zone, or put yourself in a situation where you can’t predict the outcome.

It’s like that crazy rush of mixed emotions you get when you first try to ride a bike, drive a car, or speak on a stage and you don’t know what you are doing, but you do it anyway. You are unsure of what the outcome will be but you give yourself permission to throw the dice anyways. Sadly, our society has tagged vulnerability as a weakness so when you think back to when you felt vulnerable or exposed, you probably feel embarrassed.

However, when you think more about it, these were the times when you dared to be yourself when you dared to step out of the shadows.

It also involves a person’s willingness to accept the emotional risk that comes from being open and willing to love and be loved.

I will give you a personal experience. During my Sophomore Year, my class had a quiz competition with another class and I was chosen against my will to represent the class. Not that I wasn’t brilliant, I was always in the top 3 students in my class but the main reason why I objected was because of my fear of being vulnerable. Here was my thought process…

“I am too short”

“I can’t speak well”

“People will not want to listen to me”

These were all in my head, not in the audience. So on the day of the quiz competition, I ran into hiding but unfortunately for me, I was found out and was “dragged” to the venue. I cried but it didn’t matter, I eventually had to get on stage and I did.

Now when I think about it, I know that it was that incident that led me to start thinking about my weaknesses and deliberately working on them and I can tell you that today, every of those weaknesses have been dealt with.

Now let’s get back in line.

WHY YOU SHUT OFF YOURSELF — THE GENESIS

Everything has a beginning and as such must have an end. Finding it hard to be vulnerable, and closing yourself up didn't just start when you became of age, not at all.

Growing up as a kid, it was very normal for you to be open and free. You were pretty much innocent and outgoing, sharing all of yourself with others. But as you grow and mature, you may have been taught or made to learn in difficult manners that this world can be a very damning place. You learn that there are two sides to everything, and you come to learn about inconsistencies in life, disappointments, resentment, failures, etc.

And so by instinct, you learn to be your own person, to defend yourself, to look out for yourself. This might mean that you build walls around your heart. You start to create a list of belief systems that are going to rule your life many of which will be biased i.e. based on your own personal interpretation of them. As you search for answers to life’s hurts, you may even begin to believe that you were responsible for them.

But you are not.

THE DANGER OF ISOLATION

Although there is a truth and a message around the fact that there is a load of wickedness in this world but not so much as to make you responsible for bearing the burden all alone.

One of the dangers of not allowing yourself to be vulnerable is that more often than not, it allows people to have the wrong impression about you which often comes back to hurt you.

Have you heard people say something or infer something about you that you know is completely untrue yet you didn’t speak up to defend yourself? Why? You may or may not know the reason but if you let this continue long enough, it will end up destroying your relationships and messing with your psyche.

I want you to remember that as much as a wall can be a defense mechanism to protect you from what’s coming on the outside, it could also act to prevent you from expressing yourself meaning that you can’t give or receive positive vibes and energy thereby rendering many people feeling isolated and alone.

People with this fear often become “distancers,” using well-honed methods to keep others at arm’s length. Some become intentionally buried in work, school, or other activities. Some simply disappear at the first sign that a relationship is becoming intimate.

EVERYONE PROTECTS THEMSELVES

While everyone has their own defense mechanism, usually there are three common practices by which people do this:

• Striving for perfection: You think that if you can become perfect, you can avoid being seen.
• Numbing out completely: While this is effective in minimizing the gravity of negative emotions, it also numbs out positive emotions.
• Overthinking: Imaging all the ways things can go wrong; catastrophizing. Instead of being vulnerable and accepting how precarious your happiness and the things you love are, you beat vulnerability to the punch.

IMPORTANCE OF ACCEPTING VULNERABILITY

• Greater strength: True strength is not a product of huge biceps or triceps nor is it the ability to put down 5 men at a time in combat, instead it comes from the courage to deliberately put yourself into situations where you feel vulnerable. We become stronger when we embrace ourselves for who we are and what we are feeling because that way, we don’t have to cover up anything.
• Better relationship building: Being vulnerable with others is a way to build intimacy. Since you find it easy to pull down your walls and be bare before others, it gives them room to do the same to you thereby generating more understanding of one another.
• Improved self-confidence: Issues like low self-esteem, inferiority, or superiority complexes arise from a damaged view of ourselves, however, once you are able to work through your walls to really understand yourself, it all stops. Now you get to see people in their strength, you see them as a piece meant to complete you rather than compete with you. This can foster great confidence and authenticity.
• Increased Self Love: Believe me, EVERYONE has a measure of flaws, imperfections, embarrassing pasts, and mistakes that they wish they could go back and correct — EVERYONE, even the person who you see as perfect and entire.

Insecurity is a default nature for us as humans. We all have a share in awkwardness, insecurity, and self-doubt and the sooner you start accepting it, the faster you will enter into that freedom you so want and the faster the world can benefit from who you are supposed to be.

And so one way to deal with self-isolation and the fear of vulnerability is to accept yourself and to love yourself. Yes, you have been failed and disappointed before but believe me, the best way to minimize the potential damage is not to build walls or try to act according to some self-created checklist.

CONCLUSION:

Start with 1% daily.

Perfection is a myth, it doesn’t exist because if it did humans would have never reached this height of civilization and evolution we are but the constant conquest to get better, to improve is what has taken us from the dark ages into this digital, civilized age and will take us on. So my friend, kill that thought this instant.

Being happy and fulfilled is not a factor of not having flaws. Yes, certain people may judge you for your mistakes but those are not really the ones who should matter to you, rather it should be those who will lend a hand to help you improve it.

I bet that you have a celebrity or someone that you adore, ask yourself — how often do you condemn them even when they do certain things wrong? Now if you give them the benefit of the doubt, why not give yourself the same allowance? Why use different measurements for yourself? It’s not fair, is it?

Remember the popular commandment — “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”. We need you to accept yourself so that you can accept us and then we can all live happily ever after.