Photo by Alan Cabello

5 lessons Vulnerability is teaching us

Lessons from Brené Brown’s “The power of vulnerability”

Vulnerability, according to its dictionary definition, is “the state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally”. Just reading that definition makes me wonder who would want to expose himself to that kind of possibility?

Brené Brown, a social science researcher-storyteller from the University of Houston, argues that being vulnerable is not totally a bad thing. It has power, too.

Ten years in social work, one of the many lessons Brené learned is that people who have a sense of courage, compassion, connection, and vulnerability have a strong sense of love and belongingness.

Those who embrace vulnerability are those that think of it neither as a bad nor a good thing, but rather as a necessary thing — necessary to completely feel all our emotions.

When we numb vulnerability like with our other negative emotions, we also numb the good ones like happiness and love.

…vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness, but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.

We have mixed feelings about vulnerability. two-thirds of our group are quite hesitant to the idea of being open to vulnerability. The remaining one-third thinks about the concept in a similar way Brené does.

For the hesitant ones, they believe that vulnerability can indeed make a person feel genuinely happy and open. But at the same time, being vulnerable can also mean that you’re allowing yourself to be hurt, to feel shame and fear. Being vulnerable means you are “willing to do something where there are no guarantees”, and that can mean serious anxiety and trust issues.

At the end of our sharing session, we picked up the following lessons:

1. Being vulnerable takes humility
   When one truly accepts that he/she is imperfect, then he/she allows him/herself to be vulnerable; and that vulnerability carries another lesson: everyone makes mistakes and that’s what makes us normal. A participant notes, “vulnerability is synonymous with humility.”
2. We are still worthy of love and belongingness despite our imperfections
   Brené mentioned that the generation today should raise children that are aware they are worthy of love and belongingness even if they don’t do so well in school, for example. There’s more to love in us than our imperfections.
3. It’s okay to seek help
   Let’s accept the fact that we cannot do everything on our own. There will always be times when we’ll need some form of support. And that is perfectly okay. Seeking help makes things lighter. It doesn’t mean we’re weak. It just shows that we’re strong enough to accept our imperfections.
4. We cannot selectively numb our emotions
   We can only feel genuinely happy if we have felt sadness. We can only feel the genuine joy of victory when we have already felt defeat. “You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then, we are miserable, and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and then we feel vulnerable, so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. And it becomes this dangerous cycle,” Brené notes.
5. Try to allow yourself to be seen, “deeply seen, vulnerably seen”
   This lesson comes with two more “sub-lessons”. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerably seen, that’s when we feel that we’re genuinely alive. Brené suggests that we (1) “practice gratitude and joy at moments of terror”. Another sub-lesson, and probably the most important one according to Brené, is (2) believing within ourselves that “we’re enough”. This makes us kinder and gentler to others — to ourselves.

Yes, being vulnerable is terrifying. But Brené reminds us that we live in a vulnerable world; and therefore, we cannot completely block vulnerability in our lives. Yes, there’s a possibility of heavy rainfall with being vulnerable. But we can either choose to take cover or dance with it.

— Words by Adriel Nisperos, with notes from Angelo Timothy Dawa

We initiated the BONFire Chat to open conversations, accelerate learning, and encourage a Vuja Dé mentality or the ability to look at the same things with fresh eyes. More blogs coming from our Chats soon.