V Is For Vulnerability

A few months ago a friend mentioned a TED talk that she thought I should watch. It was titled The Power of Vulnerability. Considering how vulnerable I was feeling in my life at that time, I was extremely interested in learning how I might use that yucky feeling to my advantage. Clearly I wasn't the only person who had this reaction, because the Brené Brown talk has almost twenty million views on TED's website (only about six of which can be attributed to me!). If you haven't seen it, I recommend finding twenty minutes to sit down and listen.

Vulnerability was a word I was using long before I was introduced to the video, because I couldn't seem to escape that feeling. It had become my shadow, glued to me at all times except for those occasional moments when something lit me up like the sun standing directly overhead. After my husband left, I felt like there was something wrong with me. No matter what he might have said, it felt like I wasn't enough. I was ashamed and embarrassed, and I don't have to tell you how awful that feels.

It's not that I had never been in a situation where I didn't feel worthy before, I just had never felt it so deeply–deep enough to be completely overwhelmed and incapable of hiding my feelings. That's what was different this time. I couldn't silence the uneasy feelings of vulnerability by convincing myself of my worth, putting someone else down to make me feel better, or even pretending to be okay with enough gusto that anyone (including myself!) believed it. So there I was feeling raw and naked, parading my mess–my faults, my mistakes, my fears–in front of everyone I knew.

I could write post after post about my experiences with vulnerability over the past several months (and if you come back you'll probably hear about this again!) but what I want to say about it today is that I started to notice positive things unfolding in my relationships during this period. They were happening even though I was exposed, with both my shiny and ugly parts on display. I felt like a magnet that had been flipped over, suddenly pulling people closer. Strangers engaged with me at an unprecedented rate. People that I knew peripherally asked to spend more time with me and opened up to me. I felt strong enough to share things about myself that I hadn't talked about before, so that friends I had only known for a short time understood me as though they'd known me forever. I felt more of a connection to others, even the people that were just passing through my life.  

Until I watched Brené Brown's video, I didn't realize that the source of this new connectedness was vulnerability. When we share our true selves without filtering out the messy parts, we encourage others to do the same. And this is what builds intimacy–taking the risk to be authentic in our relationships and discovering that we are more the same than different.    

Learning to embrace vulnerability has been one of the most important lessons of my life. I can't claim to practice it without fail, because sometimes the risk of getting hurt seems too great and it's tempting to build walls instead of break them down. But even in these situations, I am trying to have the courage to be fully myself and to know that no matter what is in there, it's enough.