Vulnerability

"To be vulnerable is to be alive."

For the longest time I’ve been struggling to let people get close enough to see the parts of me that hurt, to see the parts that still feel broken and still need repairing. I have been reading Brene Brown’s work on wholehearted living, and have started to realise that it is only when we open up to others in this way that we can truly connect and be our truest selves.

In Daring Greatly, Brene discusses the results she obtained from different people when asked what vulnerability means to each one personally. I gave this some thought and wrote down everything that came to mind. No filtering or overthinking.

 For me vulnerability is:

Allowing someone to see the real me

Being loved

Taking risks

Standing in my truth

Making new friends

Maintaining friendships

Sharing my writing with others

Loving and caring for someone

Seeking connection

Exploring sexuality

Being sexy and attractive

Putting in effort

Being ambitious

Asking for help

This is quite a list but I have started making some progress into understanding and accepting it. Some things I find easier to do than others. Some days allowing myself to seek these things feels fine, and completely doable while other days I find it a bit more challenging. I often struggle to tell my friends that I am having a tough time, or that I am feeling stuck and not good enough. Most of the time I am worried about how they would respond to seeing this “weakness”. The mask that I wear most often is that everything is OK and that I have all my shit together. I want to be that person, but I kept falling short. 

I am learning more and more each day that vulnerability is the furthest thing from weakness. As Brene says, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.”

I remind myself that all we have to do is take one tiny step in the direction towards what we want and eventually, when we glance back, we’ll see how far we have come. This is what keeps me going.