Why You Need To Stop Protecting Yourself So Much and Start Being Vulnerable
The older we get, the more we try to protect ourselves. We start controlling what we wear around the time we hit puberty. We stop making new friends around the time we turn 25. We stop taking career risks around the time the kids start school. We resist unknowns as soon as we find a working formula. We choose stability over passion.
The Need to be More Vulnerable
Last year, my husband turned 30. It’s just another year in his life but it made me go back to the 18year old me and what I thought I would be doing by the time I turned thirty which is this year. I expected myself to often host extravagant dinner parties and travel to far off lands in my promising writing career. I was supposed to have traveled to unknown lands such as Jordan and Cambodia. I was supposed to be doing what I loved the most in the world, traveling and writing. My first thought was that this is not practical and no one really had that kind of a life. It’s not that I wanted that life. The problem was, the last time I really chased after something was that gorgeous Zara winter coat I got at 50% off.
I was no longer prepared to risk looking like a failure while trying to get something I really wanted. I had stopped jumping into things with both feet.
Afraid to Fail
I started writing on Medium in November 2017. I had signed up for the first time 2 years before then. I had one unpublished draft for two years. Writing has been my passion since I started writing ridiculously entertaining essays in High School. It has been my favored medium of communication since I wrote letters to my best friend who lived one block away. So why was I so afraid to publish things I wrote? The only thing that has stopped my from being able to write all these years since school is the fear of not being good enough and being told that I am a bad writer. My greatest fear was not an unfulfilled writer dream but one in which there is an intervention and all my loved ones sit me down and tell me to give up writing because I suck at it.
This year, I have decided to write and publish imperfect pieces and get better through the process of writing itself. Everything I write no longer has to be a masterpiece but just has to be an honest reflection of my thoughts. I have become comfortable with my writing being judged as a part of the process of improvement. I let the number of reads of my post dictate my progress. I have to tell you, that has not been easy. Clicking on the Publish button is something that is filled with oodles of trepidation and countless deep breaths but it gets easier each time.
Facing Insecurities
When I was a teenager, I was afraid of being boring. It sounds like such a silly thing, but I thought everyone was more fun to be around than me. I don’t remember when I became a talkative person to counter that thought, because in the 6th Grade my report card said that I was a quiet, cheerful child but I became known as one of the most talkative kids in class by the 9th grade. I wanted to constantly regale those around me with funny anecdotes and was terrified that I wouldn’t be invited to hang out with the cool kids again because I wasn’t entertaining enough.
It never occurred to me that the onus could be on other people to be entertaining as well. Fast forward 15 years and I am not the people pleaser I was. I am more frank in my interactions at the risk of displeasing the other person. I feel this makes my existing relationships more meaningful. I’ve had some relationships wither away because of the change in dynamics from then and now but I don’t regret that. A few years ago it would have rattled me. I still have a long way to go in embracing discomfort within my social interactions, but I am taking steps in the right direction.
Facing Fears
When I first started living by myself, I became afraid of silence. Freud says this can be traced to a fear of being alone. To work around this fear, I started keeping the TV on in the background. I even started falling asleep to the sound of a familiar TV show (mostly Friends or Frasier). Even now, if my husband is away, I mostly put on a podcast to fall asleep to. I’ve decided its time for me to stop being ridiculous because I have to make myself comfortable with being alone at certain moments. I associate embracing being alone as similar to enjoying one’s own company and loving oneself. After all, only after I am at peace with myself can I be at peace with others, right? I am not going to pull the proverbial Bandaid all at once, but gradually my attempt is to wean myself off of this habit of being uneasy in solitude.
I have started using a mindfulness app (Calm for those who would like a recommendation) and I started a course that says ‘7 Days to Deal with Anxiety’. One of its most critical suggestions is that you allow your thoughts to occur but to also let them go away and be just that, thoughts. I would like to extend that to all kinds of anxieties I may have in life and about the future. However it does mean allowing those scary thoughts in at first, and then they will swoosh away. It took me four days to get good at this.
Being Vulnerable
Its disconcerting to allow yourself to be vulnerable. Its easier in theory than in practice. Its not easy to let hurtful criticism glide off you while taking the constructive part to improve yourself.
If you do not think that you are an already finished product, then its absolutely essential to allow yourself to feel this kind of discomfort. It can spur you into action to stretch yourself and you learn a little about yourself in the process. In the end, I don’t know if this will help me achieve my goals any faster, or make me a better person. But it’s outside my comfort zone and as long as I am out there, I know I will not be complacent and I will keep trying to lead a more fulfilling life.
