Getting comfortable with vulnerability
We’re pretty sure Mister Rogers said it best.
Welcome to Solicited Advice, our weekly column that celebrates the helpfulness in health. Because in a world where strangers at the grocery store love to tell you that a specific brand of magnesium will indeed “cure” what ails you (it probably won’t, so sorry), we’re all about passing on our lived experience in a way that makes your life a little better. Are we experts? Nah, not really. But we’re great listeners who have perfected the art of pillow screaming. Let’s get into it!
I find it hard to be vulnerable, but I know it’s necessary sometimes. How can I get more comfortable with vulnerability?
Ash: High emotionality is a big part of who I am, and while people talk about bottling emotions up, mine are constantly spilling over and impossible to lock away. I have to express myself with vulnerability whether I like it or not because it's a non-negotiable for my brain.
And as much as you see the polished results of me tip-tapping away here as I navigate complex feelings, words don't come naturally to me — at least when compared to visuals and pictures. It's also why I tend to find less benefit in talk therapy and instead have a good cry while I create art. I will pour my heart and soul into self-portraits, and my perspective shapes my style and themes when working as a photographer with clients too.
That being said, vulnerability can be draining and take a lot out of you. It can feel like a huge risk to put yourself out there, especially around people who might make you feel unsafe to do so. Sometimes, the first step in expanding your vulnerability is to take those things you’ve tucked deep away and say them out loud to yourself. It is not a weakness to be vulnerable, in fact it can be such an honest representation of the person who is otherwise hidden by a mask. I find my favorite people — looking at you, BFFs — are those I feel I can fully be myself with, and I feel that reciprocated back. It’s freeing with the right people, and terrifying with the wrong ones. Sometimes a lack of vulnerability is required for safety, but when it’s not, I recommend taking that baby step toward it and evaluating how you feel after. It may never lose its scariness completely, but in the long run it can be incredibly freeing.
I spent so many years bucking my existence as a disabled person — never ever revealing what my day-to-day actually entailed — because it made it easier for other people.
Jess: When I was younger, I was an open book and wore my heart on my sleeve. And while I process a lot internally, I’m rarely finished processing until it’s externalized, which meant I was regularly unconsciously vulnerable (and often oversharing) with people who could not hold or did not want the wholeness of me, and sometimes, people who didn’t deserve that much access to my softness, no matter how much I simply wanted to be understood and known by that person. In short, I wasn’t distinguishing between safe people and unsafe people. While the sharing itself was often unconscious, I would often realize while doing it (or shortly thereafter), and fall into a shame and guilt spiral. After a while, any kind of vulnerability or bringing attention to myself would result in that spiral — even when I wasn’t actually oversharing or being too vulnerable. Eventually I started throwing up thick walls instead. No vulnerability to see here! (A lot of sharp edges, though.) Over time, I realized I’d closed off so much of myself that I wasn’t able to easily connect with people (or myself) anymore, and it felt like very few people actually knew me.
At the same time, I’ve been writing and sharing on the Internet since we were on LiveJournal and Xanga in the early 00s. As a teen and then as a journalist in my 20s (you know, back when journalists were nonpartisan and we were held to the expectation that we wouldn’t create a conflict of interest by being partisan online or out in the world at-large), I was writing under pen names — which felt less vulnerable. After I left news journalism, I started sharing under my own name (or variations of it), and had to tackle my emotional walls and vulnerability fears head-on. It was a more nebulous thing to be on lists as a climate activist before the world came so online. Another thing to be doxxed repeatedly by the alt-right, for the opinions I expressed online, for the causes I aligned with, for sharing about my health, and even for being a poll worker. With each incident of harassment, stalking, and doxxing, I’ve had to take a breath and fight back my fears of vulnerability. Because sharing any part of ourselves can be vulnerable.
What I’ve learned over the years is that I’m able to get more comfortable doing it than being it. What I mean by that is the emotional act of being vulnerable is generally still difficult for me, but I’ve gotten more comfortable doing it. There’s a lot of self-trust involved there — trust in my beliefs and experience, in my heart, and in my ability to navigate pushback (which can be generative or draining) — and a few internal checks and balances I run through:
What is my intent in sharing or showing this piece of me? Am I sharing for connection, for validation, for my ego, to give context, etc.?
Have I processed it myself, or am I spewing outward to process on unsuspecting folks? (If I’m actively processing that doesn’t mean I can’t share, but it does mean I choose to share with a safe person, and do my best to ask for permission before spewing.)
Will this be helpful, harmful, or neutral? Am I contributing to the world I want to live in, or am I contributing to noise? Am I aligned with my values?
How might me sharing impact someone who [has a similar story, lives with marginalized identities that I don’t, has an opposite experience, and so on]. Basically, looking outside myself because intent doesn’t really matter when the impact is harmful.
Is the timing right for me to share? Do I have the emotional bandwidth to navigate any conflict it brings, to hold for someone to disagree with me in good faith, to tell the difference between someone disagreeing and someone invalidating my humanity, etc.?
Ultimately, in order to be vulnerable externally, I have to be willing to be vulnerable internally with myself first, and then I can determine if it’s something I want to share. And when it comes to sharing online, some things are better left to the diary or the group chat. 😉
Kat: I promise this story is relevant, so stick with me: I recently had jury duty and was almost placed on a criminal case that would’ve lasted over a week. No matter who you are, there are a lot of tricky logistics that this particular facet of American civil duty surfaces: rearranging appointments, coordinating different childcare arrangements if applicable, and temporarily stepping away from places of employment (which is hard even if an employer is “forced” to be flexible under law). But if you’re chronically ill like me? That poses an entirely separate layer of challenges. It took me days of rest in preparation to even go to the courthouse for a single day. I also had to arrange a ride since I haven’t been feeling up to driving long distances (20+ minutes) lately, and prepare myself for an imminent flare of some kind. So in those two hours when voir dire questioning was happening by both the prosecution and the defense, I had a choice to make: Do I push through the suck, stay quiet, and let the chips fall where they may? Or do I advocate for myself, be vulnerable, and share a little bit of my story in the hopes of being excused? In this instance, I chose the latter. The result? I was promptly dismissed for cause and was not chosen for the jury. (I’m pretty sure I’m still exhaling my relief two weeks later.)
Knowing that, my view on vulnerability can be summed up in a single sentence: I am my best self when I am vulnerable (and in charge of showing it), because it means I don’t have to hide who I am. I spent so many years bucking my existence as a disabled person — never ever revealing what my day-to-day actually entailed — because it made it easier for other people. Which means I paid the price for staying quiet. I endured unnecessary flare-ups, never took sick time (that I rightly earned), and glossed over my struggles. To that I say, no more. Because if I don’t share, how will people understand? If I don’t crack open my heart a bit, how will anyone get to know the real me? I’ve come to the conclusion that at a certain point, I can’t harbor resentment against the ignorance of others when I am doing nothing to bridge the gap myself. Someone has to make the first move, and I find myself stepping up to that role more often now than ever. So, I sat up a little straighter in my seat in that courtroom, talked about the physical agony the trial would possibly impose on my immunosuppressed self to 50+ local strangers, and took a chance that my humanity would result in empathy. It’s not always a win, but this time it was.
Skyler: From a young age I was taught there is great strength in vulnerability, and that being honest is always the best option. I was raised with the adage, “The truth will set you free.” I was fortunate to receive similar lessons and invitations for vulnerability through most of my schooling.
Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked when I attended my one — and so far only — semester of graduate school. Long story short, all my vulnerability got me was an unnecessary hour-long meeting during which I cried for 58 out of 60 minutes and the professor wouldn’t let me leave her office. She gave me a single tissue and seemed to take delight in berating me. While I will admit that she made a couple of fair points during those first two minutes of the meeting, the remaining 58 minutes were a nightmare. The second she released me from her office, I ran to the bathroom and sobbed to the point of physical pain. That interaction turned me off of vulnerability (and Ph.D. programs) for a looong time.
I’m not sharing this story to deter you from embracing vulnerability. While it’s been a hard road to regain comfort with vulnerability — and I still find this type of raw honesty challenging now and again — the journey has been worth it. Vulnerability has opened so many doors for me, and there’s nothing quite like building a relationship based on it. My deepest and strongest relationships are the ones in which I feel safe being vulnerable and my friends trust me enough to do the same.
To become more comfortable with vulnerability, I’m going to suggest a challenge that I myself am working on: Practice being vulnerable with yourself. This is not an invitation to stare yourself down in the mirror and hurl insults at yourself. Instead, try to journal, write a song, paint a picture, sit in silence, or have an honest conversation with yourself. You don’t have to magically develop self-confidence or an inflated ego — I’m personally a fan of getting to a place of neutrality first — but you owe it to yourself to be vulnerable. And in embracing vulnerability, remember these words from Mister Rogers: “The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self.”
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I think Brene Brown says it best- she says that true vulnerability is sharing with those who are have earned the right to hear your story. I often think of openness as the near-enemy of vulnerability- it looks very much the same on the surface but at the core they are so different. To me openness is sharing (shocking) details without being in touch with my humanity and/or the humanity of those who are listening. Vulnerability is about being fully human with others and allowing them to be fully human with me. My therapist works with Pia Mellody's model and in there they list being too vulnerable as one unhealthy end of the spectrum and being invulnerable as the other unhealthy end. The healthy middle is Boundaries- "I protect myself and am vulnerable as appropriate".