Being Emotionally Vulnerable !! …
We humans always thrive to connect to each other in some sort or form whether we acknowledge it or not. Still we see tons of people facing loneliness, broken relationships, emotional breakdowns and so on. Experts says, Vulnerability is the medicine for most of those problems.
Its not easy to be emotionally vulnerable with anyone, even with those people who are dearest to you. You need to be ‘brave’ , surrender your inner mind to be vulnerable. Its absolutely a scary thought of being ‘mentally naked’ . If the other person does not value us being open to them, we are prone to being hurt badly. Bringing down the guard to let ourselves seen clearly, admitting our flaws is not an easy thing to do. People may judge all your thought process wrongly and instead of the comfort feeling, one may end up with feeling of guilt and shame. So I would say, being vulnerable with right people is more important. But, what are the key factors to identify such people? Honestly so far, I have not come across any specific straightforward answer to this question.
“We can’t selectively numb emotion. Numb the dark and you numb the light.” — quote from Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly , is one of my favorite.
Running away from the dark will not do any good; facing the dark ,uplifting the feelings will always help.
Yet to me , being vulnerable seems like a classic ‘chicken-egg’ problem. If the people involved in any relationship are not emotionally tuned with each other , being vulnerable is not going to produce any results and vice versa. In short, emotionally intelligent people connect with others easily and its very easy to be vulnerable with them. Respecting others feelings/emotions, accepting others as individuals, showing support — all come naturally to people with high “EQ”.
Having said that, is it impossible to be vulnerable with less emotionally intelligent people? It depends. I would suggest building any relationship in small baby steps than keeping it “broad open” at the very beginning. To make it even clear, one need not be secretive but be smartly selective about how much to open up. Based on other person’s approaches and responses , open yourselves up accordingly. If you find the other person ‘unworthy’ of your affection during the process, you better move away from that relationship before you get hurt. Trapping yourselves in unwanted relationship goes against the intent behind ‘being vulnerable’. Please remember, being vulnerable is NOT a weakness. Its all about ‘being BRAVE’ and making right decisions about how you feel!!
What about professional relations with colleagues? That also needs certain level of vulnerability within team members to have psychological safety. By displaying vulnerability, leaders show that making mistakes is acceptable and this in turn decreases the fear of risk-taking among team members.
Whether it be professional or personal, closeness, romance, trust, intimacy or pure unconditional love , it can not exist ‘without being vulnerable’. But how much is good ? It all depends on how far you can or want to go deeper in relationship with that person.
So, be very careful … start being vulnerable with ‘CHOSEN’ people ONLY !!
