Vulnerablity

Connection

A few days ago, my girlfriend Sally introduced me to a qualitative researcher named Brene Brown.  The subject of Brown’s research is human interaction, specifically, connection.  This woman has dedicated the better part of a decade to studying the dynamics of connection and what constitutes successful and futile attempts at emotional connection.  That’s weird.   I have also spent the better part of a decade trying to understand those principles.  Only nobody has been willing to publish my thoughts on the matter.  Regardless, connection is a subject that isn’t fascinating only to scholars.  We all question the meaning of our relationships and how they are maintained or neglected. 

Anyway, the long and short of Brown’s thesis is that people who can obtain and maintain relationships with others possess four common character attributes:  Courage, compassion, connection, and vulnerability.  Vulnerability being the keystone of successful relational interactions.  Brown’s position is that, even though we are conditioned to believe that we should avoid being vulnerable, it precedes openness, therefore vulnerability is conducive to forging human connection.   Her research is, obviously, far my intricate than that.  But for the purposes of this conversation, let’s just focus on vulnerability and its role in connectedness. 

So, how do we connect? 

Sometimes we want to be hermits.  Sometimes we don’t want to interact with other people.  Sometimes we just want to be left alone.  But we do need other people.  It’s just a fact.  We need friends we can relate to.  We need people to bounce ideas off of.  We need intimacy and validation.  (Please refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  It’s Psychology for Dummies, people.)  What I am trying to get at here, is that we NEED relational interaction, but how do we get it? 

Well, we get it by finding others with common interests, thoughts and goals.  We get it by sharing our ideas and emotions with other people.  We get it by being honest.  We get it by being open.  We get it by being vulnerable. 

Weakness

If anyone gets vulnerability, it’s this girl. Because I don’t have a problem with honesty.  I don’t have a problem telling people how I feel.  I don’t even mind that the whole world knows my short comings.  I’m kind of the epitome of  vulnerability.  Or am I?  I will tell you when I’m happy.  I will tell you why I’m happy.  I will tell you when I’m pissed.  And everyone knows why.  I am the proverbial open book.  But I still try to qualify my experiences.  Yesterday, for example, when I was pissed at the world and the one million pieces of tempered glass in the back yard.  Everyone knew that I was sick and tired.  But I had to qualify my anger with gratitude.  Yes, I was pissed, but I couldn’t just say I was pissed.  I had to acknowledge that my life is amazing and, yes, sometimes bad things happen and we have to pick up and move forward…blah…blah…blah…VOMIT.  But I approached it that way, because I would appear too self-consumed and vulnerable if I just said “This sucks and I’m real pissed.” 

After watching the Brown piece on YouTube, it occurred to me that the same reason I won’t just say I’m pissed” is the same reason I won’t just say “I’m confused and my heart hurts.”  It’s the same reason that I haven’t been able to approach some of the emotionally significant things in my life.  Not too long ago, I had a very intimate encounter with someone I have loved for years.  The basis of our relationship had always been honesty and understanding.  That’s how our friendship was built.  So, it probably wasn’t a leap to incorporate more intimate interaction.  After all, what’s more personal than truth and compassion?  That was our connection.  It was established by vulnerability.  Duh.  But after we saw each other at our most susceptible, I became guarded.  I could no long say what I meant.  Or what I felt.  I couldn’t say “This changes everything and nothing at the same time.”  I couldn’t say “I have loved you up until this point; I won’t stop loving you now.”  I absolutely couldn’t say “I can’t stop thinking about you.”  Because those things would have left me vulnerable.  And even though I wanted to say all of that, and more, I couldn’t.  Because it’s a show of weakness.  Because intimacy leaves you vulnerable.  And we lose the connection when we don’t have the courage to be vulnerable with the people we care about.

Vulnerability

I’ve been having a real hard time writing recently.  It’s because I don’t want to appear too vulnerable.  Or maybe I don’t want to appear too crazy.  But I’m starting to realize that, socially, vulnerable is synonymous with crazy.  Or insecure.  Or unhappy.  Or any other undesirable character trait we may possess.  We equate vulnerability with weakness.  It isn’t though.  It takes more strength to be forward with your intentions, regardless of how those intentions are received, than it takes to hide them.  By hiding our intentions, we submit to the idea that we aren’t worthy of connection.   By avoiding vulnerability, we sacrifice our inner peas.