The Personal Process of Vulnerability
Learn about not being attached to an outcome and how to lean into your own process of vulnerability
I’m not sure why, but every couple of weeks there seems to be a theme of my therapy sessions with clients… whether it’s a personal process, a feeling, or a relational issue. Sometimes it makes me feel like the world really is incredibly small and we are connected with one another on levels we don’t even know. That theme recently has been ‘being attached to an outcome’. This has been prevalent in my personal life as well, and often there are moments in session when I say to myself ‘me too’ when listening to someone else’s story.
What do I mean by being attached to an outcome? In a brief example, when we think about being vulnerable with someone, or sharing a particularly sacred feeling or experience, we often want to be received, listened to, and held in that emotional place. We are often scared and nervous about sharing something vulnerable, and in turn we want support, love, and affection. We may even want appreciation or a display of gratitude from the other person. I know I can feel comforted when a friend says ‘thank you so much for telling me that’ after sharing something sensitive. We often desire this response from the people in our lives because we want to feel connection… we want to feel like we are not so broken after all and maybe when this vulnerability is shared we can feel less shame, sadness, or fear. Some of us may hope that in sharing vulnerability, the other person may change their behavior, or choose to respond to us in a kinder way then they previously have. ‘if they know this information about me maybe they won’t be so rude or frustrated with me!’
While I encourage all of my clients to engage in different forms of vulnerability, whether that is with themselves or with trusted loved ones, I think we can sometimes get stuck in thinking A+B=C… In regard to the context here, people may think vulnerability = external relational change. While I will be the first to say that vulnerability is a fantastic pathway to deeper interpersonal relationships with others, I think this mindset can bypass the point of vulnerability. In thinking about being attached to an outcome, we could look at this example as, if I am vulnerable with people, the outcome will be that I will have emotionally close relationships because this other person or this situation will change. But what happens when we don’t receive support… we don’t receive a listening ear… or we hear words that we may interpret as judgmental or shame-based? It may appear then that A+B≠C… Do you know how many times I hear, ‘but I was vulnerable and nothing happened!’ if this is you, keep reading…
Yes, engaging in vulnerability may mean we have the opportunity to create deeper connections with the others in our lives. There is incredible research about folks who consider themselves to be vulnerable and how they are also considered to be courageous, wholehearted, and have deeper relationships with loved ones (if you haven’t checked out Daring Greatly by Brené Brown please do!). However, engaging in vulnerability for the sake of trying to change others or change situations may not have the intended result that we want. ‘So what’s the point of vulnerability then if it won’t change anything?’
Vulnerability can create internal change… If we take a step back from the relational impacts of vulnerability, what are the other effects of vulnerability? Here, I am talking about the intrapersonal relationship with our emotional selves. While vulnerability may get conflated with connecting with others in a way that is better for ourselves, vulnerability is a very internal and personal process. If we detach from the outcome of ‘this person will change and our relationship will be better’ then we have the experience of being vulnerable with ourselves. It is my perspective that the experience of being vulnerable with ourselves is the experience that we need to be fostering. If I am vulnerable with myself, I can learn about my emotions, how it is to feel the emotional range of the human condition, how to regulate myself… and most importantly how to learn to accept my whole self as a complex, contradictory human. If we start here, with the relationship with ourselves, we can feel greater acceptance and fulfilling love and support from the inside when we are met with invalidation or judgement from others. Being vulnerable is about you, not about the other person and what they choose to do with experiencing your vulnerability.
So I encourage you to take a step back and think for yourself… how often do I do or say things hoping for a specific outcome? When am I acting from a place of inner love and acceptance versus acting from a place of need or seeking a specific outcome? The greater vulnerability we can foster within, the greater we can allow others to truly see us, or feel that we can support ourselves in our evolving process.
