#116: Vulnerability

We become psychologically vulnerable the moment we allow someone to see what we most want to conceal: our deepest insecurities, our fears, our neediness, our weaknesses, our immaturity. Or more simply, the parts of us that make us human.

To be vulnerable is to lower the mask we wear before the world and reveal what sits behind it; fragile, unfinished, uncertain.

This is particularly difficult with those whose affection we value. It is hard to admit that there are certain ways in which we fall short of what we believe an accomplished adult should be like.

And so we distort. Not out of malice, but preservation. We want to keep to the ideal we believe they hold of us: we are strong, we are unafraid, we are secure. We detach from our needs and wants. We are putting on a show of being someone we are not.

In some contexts, this performance serves us. The composed, confident, emotionally contained professional is often rewarded. But in intimate relationships, the barricade that protects us may also isolate us.

A futile attempt

Our insecurities, fears and inadequacies don't disappear because they are hidden. They remain, only now we have to carry them alone. We exhaust ourselves playing a character. Worse still, we deny others the chance to truly know us.

And because people take their cues from what we show, they too withhold. Two masked figures, each waiting for the other to move first.

To risk vulnerability requires an act of faith and an understanding that what we are ashamed of in ourselves must exist, in some form, in others. That we are not uniquely flawed. That the weaknesses we conceal are part of the shared human experience.

True vulnerability often involves reaching back into childhood. To be properly vulnerable is to allow someone to see that we are still, in meaningful ways, the once-distressed child inside an adult exterior. Real connection occurs when those hidden children recognise one another.

Why do we resist?

If vulnerability offers connection, why do some resist it so fiercely? Hundreds of hours exploring this subject leads me to believe that the more someone insists on displaying strength, the more likely it is that they learned early that softness was unsafe. Put more simply, it may be an indicator of how fast they had to grow up.

Many who carry darkness may conceal it precisely because they care. They do not wish to burden others with an understanding of what they have endured. What they may fail to recognise is that it is only because they posses so much light, that they survived that darkness. That light is special and deserves to be shared.

We do not become warriors because of the mask we wear. We become warriors because of what convinced us we needed one.

Asking for vulnerability

The tragedy is that what these individuals most require — tenderness towards their earlier selves — is what they fear most.

Those who understand this dynamic will notice when someone is holding something back, and naturally want them to open up. It is important to recognise that when that person is willing to finally lower the mask, even slightly, the moment is significant. It may have required extraordinary courage.

In that instant, what they are truly saying is: I am willing to trust you completely.

Respond with care

Respond with care. Act with understanding, empathy, and compassion, and you may learn everything you ever wanted to know about that person. Do the opposite, however, and you may miss the chance forever to fully know them.

As I wrote in the last edition, the words we tell others can be powerful. The words spoken after true vulnerability lands can echo significantly. If you are asking for vulnerability, encourage it gently and treat it carefully. Vulnerability can be a source of frustration for those who seek it, but also to those who recognise they must show it. Be patient and compassionate with others.

Recognise that all behaviour makes sense with enough context. Conversations involving true vulnerability may be among the most consequential you ever have with another person.

We grow stronger, not weaker, when we speak honestly about where we are fragile. Connection deepens when we allow weakness to be witnessed.

— AJ