Vulnerability

"To love is to be vulnerable."

-C.S. Lewis

A few weeks back I had to go to the dentist to get a cavity filled.  Not my favorite thing in the world to do, but necessary nonetheless.  Thankfully, dentists have this wonderful thing they can shoot in to our gums to make us numb so that we can't feel the pain of getting the tooth drilled and fixed.  Then after a few hours the numbness wears off and while we might be a little sore after, we don't feel much pain.  It got me thinking, wouldn't it be nice if we could just numb ourselves from all pain in life??  (I'm being facetious). Well there are ways that we numb ourselves in life from emotional pain.  Lots of ways actually.  For some it's drugs or alcohol.  For others it could be overeating or overspending.  Gambling. Watching excessive amounts of television or playing video games for hours on end.  The list goes on.  Now I'm not saying that these things are all bad (with the exception of drugs), as long as they are done in moderation.  But when it gets to the point where we are doing these things to numb ourselves, then it has become unhealthy.  We numb ourselves from feeling emotional pain and to protect ourselves from getting hurt, because otherwise we would be allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.     

When I think of vulnerability, I think of children.  Children are some of the most genuine creatures on earth because they are so willing to be vulnerable.  Children love others with their whole hearts and are very forgiving.  They are trusting of others.  They take the time to enjoy life, to be in the moment.  Then somewhere along the line they become adults and a lot of this stops. I think many of us start out being vulnerable as children and then over time we get hurt by others or just life in general and we slowly start to build up a wall.  For some that wall is thicker and higher than for others, depending on our experiences.  Or we walk around wearing a symbolic suit of armor to protect ourselves from getting hurt in the future.  Of course children don't always understand that not all people can be trusted and as adults we often have to protect them for those kinds of people.  But I also think we can learn a lot from children in this regard.

Someone recommended THIS Ted talk to me called "The Power of Vulnerability" by Brene Brown that I think is fabulous.  It's about 20 minutes long but it is totally worth your time.  Seriously, you must watch it!!!  Stop reading and go watch it.  It will change your life.  She is an expert on vulnerability and has actually done tons of research on how important vulnerability is in our relationships. When we numb ourselves, although we can protect ourselves from feeling pain, we also prevent ourselves from feeling the great things in life too. Brene Brown said the following about this very thing:

".....We are the most in-debt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.  The problem is -- and I learned this from the research -- that you cannot selectively numb emotion.  You can't say, here's the bad stuff.  Here's vulnerability, here's grief, here's shame, here's fear, here's disappointment.  I don't want to feel these.  I'm going to have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin.....You can't numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions.....So when you numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.  And then we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin.  And it becomes a dangerous cycle." 

(see Ted talk link above for reference).

(I LOVE Brene Brown, she is so awesome....next book on my wish list, her book Daring Greatly)

Now I'm not saying go out and get a root canal without anesthetic....that would be ridiculous!  But I am saying that we should all take risks once in a while.  Let others see parts of ourselves that we're often too afraid to show (and I don't mean go out flashing people, lol!).  Odds are if you start to open yourself up a little bit, others will too.  And it will be amazing how this will affect the quality of your relationships.  There is also a chance that there are going to be those people who will still hurt you when you open yourself up to them.  It's just a reality.  But kudos to you for putting yourself out there and taking that risk.  (And try to keep in mind that they've probably been hurt too).  This concept reminds of the 2009 movie "He's Just Not That In To You" (cute movie, I recommend it).  At the end of a party, Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) goes out on a limb and kisses Alex (Justin Long), only to be rejected afterwards.  Alex gives her a hard time for always putting herself out there just to be hurt by men, and she says something so profound.  She says, "I'd rather be like that than be like you.  I may dissect each little thing and put myself out there too much, but at least that means I still care.....you may not get hurt or make an ass of yourself that way, but you don't fall in love that way either.  You have not won, you're alone Alex.  I may do a lot of stupid shit but I know I'm a lot closer to finding someone than you are."  Isn't that awesome??  I just love it!  She hit the nail right on the head.  By not allowing yourself to be vulnerable you may prevent yourself from being hurt by others, but you also prevent yourself from experiencing life to the fullest.

Now the next question is: how do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable?  What does it actually look like?  I'll let Brene answer this since she says it so well (this is another excerpt from that same Ted talk):

"To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee -- and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, excruciatingly difficult -- to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much?  Can I believe in this this passionately?  Can I be this fierce about this?"  Just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive."  And at last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough.  Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves."

Isn't that beautiful?!  I'm going to start working towards being more vulnerable in my relationships, and I hope you will too.

In doing research for this post I came across this "badge" (below) that I'm going to put on my side bar as a reminder to always strive to be authentic and genuine with others (found it here....there's also a great interview Brene did with Oprah found at that link):