How to Train Yourself to be Vulnerable
Observe your stimulus-feeling-response pattern. Then step into rawness.
I once saw communication advice that said, “If you can’t communicate without raising your voices, go to a public spot like the library, park, or restaurant where you’d be embarrassed if anyone saw you screaming.”
This is great — if it works.
But, unfortunately, the public environment isn’t always enough to keep you and/or your partner in check.
In fact, some people subconsciously wield public humiliation as a weapon against their partner in order to get their way.
If you want to go down this road of discontent, distrust and separation, go ahead and wield that weapon.
OR, if you want to build authentic connection and relationship, you’ll have to overcome the urge to disrespect your partner in public and be bigger.
Find another way to communicate. To authentically share and empathetically listen.
The threat of embarrassment to your partner might lead to you getting your way in the moment, but it will erode your relationship in the long-run. Instead of instilling fear of public humiliation, wouldn’t it be more pleasant and constructive to learn another way in communication?
Communication issues often show up as the avoidance of vulnerability. Namely, when we are put in a situation where vulnerability is an option, yet find ourselves scanning for alternate options that enable us to avoid putting our real selves out there.
However, for those of us who are growth oriented, the successful escape from the clutches of vulnerability is followed by a regret of having employed this avoidance tactic.
This is because we know that the refined path in life, as well as in relationships, is to build connection with fearless authenticity, rather than to flee from the uncertainty of how the other might respond.
Pull in the reigns on your feelings of discomfort by becoming well attuned to the way you feel right before you bolt. Train yourself little-by-little to lean into the rawness, and not to follow your urge to get away.
Take note of the emotions you feel and how you react to those emotions. As you become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and the behaviors that follow, you clue into your stimulus-feeling-response pattern. This helps you to become more aware of your inner dynamics, which opens the possibility for you to step into the feelings of uncomfortability that come up for you in those moments of rawness.
This is how a relationship that feels numb and distant can begin to feel a sense of closeness and emotional intimacy — by turning things around one awkward (or revealing) situation at a time.
Play with these situations. Observe yourself and your emotions. Let go of what you think others think. You don’t have control over that. Get out of their head and into your own skin. Solve your personal issues and you’ll find most of your relationship issues are no longer relevant.
