Vulnerability.
If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for a good Ted Talk, an intriguing article, or an innovative podcast.
I am nothing if not curious about new ideas, new theories, new art, and particularly interpersonal relations, and what it means to be human.
I’ve also been in and out of therapy from the ripe old age of nine.
I’ve grappled with some demons I must admit, but I have no shame in that journey and am very open about my path to mental wellness.
So with that being said, I have become very acquainted with the work of many renowned psychologists, including that of Qualitative Researcher, Social Worker, Author, and Speaker, Brené Brown.
I am sure some of you are familiar with her Ted Talks, which have accumulated several million views on YouTube.
Her talk, “The Power of Vulnerability” is what I will be writing about today, and how embracing vulnerability has impacted my life.
Brené starts by talking about where her research began. As a qualitative researcher, she collects stories as her primary source of data. Focus groups, interviews, along with stories sent in via the internet. She collects stories relating to her studies, and then finds the commonalities among them, to research different areas of the human condition.
As she was working towards her Ph.D., she began researching connection. She said that after being a social worker for ten years, you realize that connection is why we are here. It is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.
Neurobiologically, we are wired to connect. It is what keeps us alive, and it’s what makes us human.
So she wanted to study it.
Connection.
Who feels it, who doesn’t, how we can feel connection, and what gets in the way of us feeling it.
So, she asked people to tell her stories relating to connection, and as she asked people to tell her of connection, what she was told were stories of the opposite.
Disconnect, heartbreak, rejection, loneliness.
And after about six weeks of her research, she discovered this unknown thing that absolutely unravels connection.
After sifting through these stories again, she concluded that this missing variable, this thing that instantly disconnected us,
was shame.
Fundamentally, shame is the fear of disconnection. The fear of not being good enough, the fear that at your root, there is something wrong with you that will prevent you from connecting to those around you.
And we have all felt this.
The hot red wash of shame.
We all know it.
I have distinct memories of this feeling, it seems to be a feeling a lot of us hold on to.
The earliest memory I have of this is from elementary school. My parents had just told us that they were getting a divorce, and I remember the distinct feeling of “what will others think? I don’t want to have a bad family. I don’t want to be bad.”
It’s as simple as that for most of us.
“I don’t want to be bad.”
Now, obviously, coming from a broken home does not make us bad, but living in a highly religious area, there was such a taboo around divorce, I believed wholeheartedly that there was something fundamentally wrong with me and my family because of this.
From that point on, I felt as though I had this deep formidable secret, and as my childhood continued, and family members struggled with addiction, trauma, and abuse, this shame only compounded.
Brené describes shame as the feeling of “Is there something about me, that if other people know it or see it, that I won’t be worthy of connection?”
And shame doesn’t have to originate from Trauma with a capital T. It is universal. It’s wired into our biology, so it’s not about avoiding it, but learning how to manage it.
There are three things that Brené concluded about shame.
We all have shame.
No one wants to talk about it.
The less you talk about it the more you have.
So now that she concluded that Connection is what we desire, and Shame is what unravels that, she went through her research and divided these stories into two groups.
People who felt shame but still had a sense of connection, a sense of worthiness, and belonging, regardless of their shame, and people who struggled with this.
As she studied these two groups, she concluded that the only difference between those who have a sense of love and belonging, and those who don’t, is that the people who have a sense of love and belonging believe they are WORTHY of love and belonging.
That is the only difference.
That they believe that they are worthy of it.
She called these people, who have this sense of worthiness and belonging, “whole-hearted people.”
After that she went through these subjects, these whole-hearted people, searching for what they have in common, and what made them different than their counterparts who struggle with feeling worthiness as a result of debilitating shame.
As she did, she concluded that these things helped create these “whole-hearted people.”
Courage
Compassion
Connection
Vulnerability.
Courage to tell the story of who they are fully and completely. To be imperfect. To be seen, fully seen, for all of them, regardless of how they believe others will take it.
Compassion for themselves and others, for you, can’t have one without the other. The ability to recognize flaws, within themselves and others, and empathize and love anyway.
Connection as a result of authenticity, not a result of masking who they really are.
And the final, and in my opinion most necessary component, vulnerability.
Brené says that these people, these whole-hearted people believed that what made them vulnerable was what made them beautiful.
They didn’t describe vulnerability as comfortable, but they also didn’t describe it as excruciating. They just described it as necessary.
They talked about the willingness to say I love you first.
They talked about going for jobs, even if success was not guaranteed.
They talked about the willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out.
Brené says that vulnerability is our greatest fear when dealing with shame, but it is the only way to face it.
It is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love.
But vulnerability isn’t easy, and it’s not most of our defaults. I know that for me, I am prone to fight back vulnerability with a stick. I don’t want to be seen as weak. Growing up in a home that wasn’t consistently stable, not only was vulnerability taboo, it wasn’t safe.
But what that has taught me is to do everything in my power to keep myself guarded.
And I have desperately struggled with connection as a result of it.
The number of times I have sat in crowded rooms, surrounded by people I knew that were supposed to love me and that I was supposed to love, but fundamentally felt isolated and alone are countless.
Brené then goes on to speak about how most of us do three things when we are feeling vulnerable to fight it off, rather than leaning into it.
We numb it, through substance use, through food, through shopping, through meaningless sex, through work, and a multitude of other things.
We try to make uncertain things certain, to avoid feeling vulnerable. We say “I’m right you’re wrong, now shut up.” This often shows up in religion and politics. We would rather parade around wearing the armor of false confidence, thinking we have it all figured out than be vulnerable and say, “I don’t know”, or “maybe”.
We try to perfect, particularly ourselves, our lives, our homes, our families, our children, instead of embracing the vulnerability of being imperfect.
We pretend that our actions don’t affect other people, to avoid the vulnerability of being perceived and judged and the vulnerability necessary to say “I’m sorry.” We blame. We offshore accountability.
For me, fighting back vulnerability manifests in many different ways.
I don’t share my feelings.
I don’t cry in front of people.
I put on this false performance of perfection, particularly on social media. Every person on my close friend's story has made comments on the sharp contrast between it and my main feed.
I act like I have it all figured out even when I desperately don’t.
So what can we do to combat this? How can we learn to embrace vulnerability, and realize how not only necessary it is, but how powerful it can be?
For me, this journey began about nine months ago. Actively forcing myself to embrace vulnerability daily, through small acts.
I wasn’t confessing my feelings to every person I had a crush on, or trauma dumping to the strangers at the bus stop, but in small and simple ways I began to change my relationship with vulnerability.
I went without makeup for a few days.
I went on first dates, and last dates.
I auditioned for an acting program that I knew would be nearly impossible to get into, (and that I didn’t get into).
I cried in front of close friends.
I reached out to an old friendship that I knew I had pushed away and apologized.
I started a blog where I began sharing the most personal parts of me.
I left social media for a time, where a lot of my self-worth originates from.
I got back into therapy and started working through the shame that I had let build.
I said “sorry”.
I listened to what hurt and leaned into it.
I am learning how to let myself be seen. Fully seen, for all of me.
I am learning to love with my whole heart, even though there are no guarantees.
I am learning to get comfortable with the “maybes” and the “I don’t knows”.
If you are struggling with connection, with feeling seen and heard, with hard feelings of shame, I promise you this,
the quickest way to dissipate shame is to shed a light on it.
Whatever it is that you’re going through, whatever your story may be, I promise you that you’re not alone in it.
Speak up.
I invite you to learn to embrace vulnerability. To feel the fear and walk forward anyway, palms open.
We need to learn how to be seen. We need to learn how to care again, even when we might get hurt.
And I could continue with my own words, but I believe Brené says it best.
“The last thing, which I probably think is most important, is to believe that we’re enough.
Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says “I am enough” then we stop screaming and start listening, we’re kinder and gentler with people around us, and kinder and gentler to ourselves.”
Embrace it.
Much love,
Cam.
