Be brave, be vulnerable

The other day I was walking preparing for the session for the team I was about to facilitate. I was in the room already. The session was about to start in a minute. I had my agenda and I had clarity on what my purpose was. I felt prepared for whatever that day would bring. I felt kind of excitement, curiosity, and pressure. And I did care. With all my heart. About people who were there in the session. And something happened. Before we started one participant approached me and simply asked me, “Are you nervous?”. I said I was. He said, “You know what, perhaps we are even more nervous than you are.” I stopped. I was moved. So much happened in that moment. Personally, it meant so much to me, really. I felt seen. He decided to stop whatever he was doing, to ask me how I was, to really “see” me, to “connect”. He was empathetic and also, he was vulnerable by sharing how he felt. It made me think that those moments when we are vulnerable with others make such a huge difference in the way we build relationships.

Vulnerability always happens in a relationship. It is what makes us real and human. It is what makes us connect with others. It happens when we are brave to be authentic and we let others see us. It comes with simple words and gestures. With saying what you think and how you feel. With saying that you truly care about someone. With recognizing that someone has a talent or a quality you don’t have, something that you admire in them. With saying that you are scared, that you feel ashamed, that you don’t know, that you messed up and you are sorry. With asking a question that might feel dumb. When we feel uncertain, but we take the risk anyway. Sounds easy, huh? Difficult as hell in life! Why is that? Why do we struggle to be vulnerable with others? This is us who is standing in the way. There are us and our stories.

We have our beliefs that block us. We might think vulnerability is for someone who is emotional, weak, soft. And we want to be strong, we have to be strong. Somehow, we believe that our true self is not enough, should not be seen  or we try to “fit in” in a role, in a character, so we end up convincing ourselves that we are something different and we are projecting it to others. So, we play strong, even though deep inside we feel insecure, or we have our fears or doubts. It drains us internally. Carrying this shield is heavy. The worst is, if we don’t recognize that we are carrying this shield, we might end up forgetting who we really are.

We might also confuse vulnerability with naive sharing. And the truth is that vulnerability has nothing to do with treating people like emotional containers of your own thoughts and feelings. Overwhelming them with your stories, struggles and secrets. Vulnerability needs boundaries. We must be mindful of what we are sharing, who is in front of us, what our purpose is.

Vulnerability requires being in contact with our feelings. And sometimes we struggle with our feelings. We are too scared to recognize what we feel. We can’t speak about feelings. We have no language to talk about them. We try to “outsmart” feelings. We tell ourselves we are too strong for feelings. The truth is that there is no way we don’t feel. We are humans. There is no magic “unfeel” button. As long as we live and breathe, we do feel. There are only ways to numb and ignore our feelings. That’s what we do way too often. And we can’t be vulnerable if we don’t connect with our feelings, with some vulnerable place inside ourselves first.

What also makes vulnerability challenging is our strong need to control and our desire to “look” perfect. Both are huge vulnerability stoppers. Being vulnerable needs letting go of control and accepting the “unknown” of where it can lead us. It also requires giving up on being perfect. And we are obsessed with perfection. We use filters in Instagram. Like we didn’t want to see that we are not perfect. We focus on proving that we are right. We play brilliant and act like we know everything. We desperately want to look beautiful, smart and competent. That doesn’t help to be vulnerable.

Eventually, we don’t show vulnerability because we are scared that people will laugh at us, will reject us, will stop liking us, and that just hurts a lot. And yes, sometimes when we are vulnerable, we get hurt, we feel ashamed, disconnected, alone, we “hit the wall”, we might even regret we opened up. Ouch! Yes, it happens. It will happen. So, what to do? Opening up and being vulnerable could be a bumpy process. It requires taking steps, sometimes big and sometimes small, trust in ourselves, being brave, accepting that we will fall down, but also trusting that we will stand up again. It is a very individual process; nobody can decide for us how and when to be vulnerable. It is our personal choice.

In our experience, the greatest connections in personal and professional life happen in those moments when we can see the real, not perfect but authentic human being in front of us, who also wants to see our real, not perfect us. This creates a safe place, where shields can go down, it feels lighter.

How do you live vulnerability in your life? How do you create this safe space?