Navigating Crises from Vulnerability

Multiple global crises are unfolding in real-time. There will be more as the old limits of our world are breached, and we tumble towards new and untested ways of living.

When these crises occur, it is tempting to retreat into easy answers. To blame some other person or group of people, to disconnect emotionally from pain and vulnerability, to deny that there is anything wrong at all.

Personally, I know that my first instinct when in crisis is to reach for anger, for moral outrage, for someone to blame, for a sense of control. Even to punish.

Or, alternatively, to disown my feelings and seek distraction, to reach for the cold blanket of feeling nothing at all, and pretend that everything is okay. The “Don’t worry everyone, I’ve got this” approach, even when I haven’t got it at all.

I’ve used both of these strategies when confronted with difficult emotional experiences, for much of my life. Maybe you have too.

What I’ve learned is that when I blame, which I often do, it transfers my pain into the world in the form of anger and shame where it will be experienced by others, while also leaving me feeling bad.

When I avoid or repress my difficult emotions, it keeps them in my body, where they remain unconscious, hindering my health, and hampering my ability to connect deeply with others.

These habits also contribute to a societal pattern of behaviour where we collectively, and mostly unconsciously, act out our unresolved hurt repeatedly in the world, adding fuel to the growing crises of isolation, division, and intolerance in the world today.

Surely there must be a better way for us to cope with change?

Lately I wonder if a more meaningful response to the repetitive, and probably enduring crises we are witnessing in the world, is to seek and create experiences of deeper human connection by practicing direct vulnerability.

Vulnerability is our deepest, most human state of being. We all struggle, we all feel pain, sadness, longing, grief, fear, and loss at different points in our life.

Yet we are also taught, in a million different ways, to hide it from the world. We are told that it is weakness to express our vulnerability. This can lead us to believe that our pain makes us different, or broken, or even special.

In reality, our pain is the most common of human experiences. It can bring us closer together, if we let it.

Communicating from vulnerability means we lead with our vulnerabilities when talking about difficult issues. We express our fear, sadness, shame, doubt, and uncertainty first. We acknowledge anger, but we try our best to exercise compassion for self, and others.

This may sound obvious, or idealistic, or confusing, or wrong, depending on your worldview, and maybe it is all of those things, but the current approach to our widespread crisis of meaning and connection is making things worse.

It’s time to try something different.

Here are a few tests that I’m experimenting with to help to address this challenge:

1. Staying with vulnerability

Pain is painful. It’s natural to want to make it stop and it’s a natural coping mechanism for our brain and body to distance us from it.

But if I habitually repress my pain, or project it onto others through blame, I just transfer it out of my awareness. This habit is very common, and has the tendency to make relationships and communities less resilient.

My first hypothesis is that approaching life’s difficulties from a place of healthy vulnerability will open myself and others to greater support and wellbeing.

2. Learning compassion

Compassion is hard, especially when we are hurting, or fearful. Compassion means I have to authentically imagine myself, without judgement, in another person’s shoes, and try to understand what they are experiencing.

To do this I also have to temporarily let go of my ego-centric perspective of the world, which can be frightening.

My second hypothesis is that practicing compassion — especially for those that seem most different from myself — will help me relate to everyone better, while strengthening my relationships and communities.

3. Being with others

Our culture and way of life, including our consumer patterns, our technologies, and most of the systems we have built to sustain us, are hyper-individualized, and left unchecked foster a deepening and widespread isolation.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like I spend too much of my non-working life in front of the computer, and who feels a growing sense of disconnect from it.

My third hypothesis is that the simple, yet difficult cure to this malady is to go offline more, and spend meaningful time with others.