Vulnerability — The Key To Building Healthy Relationships
The paradox of human nature is that it’s our flaws, insecurities, and imperfections that draw us toward each other in the quickest and most authentic ways. By being vulnerable, we can build meaningful and long-lasting relationships and live our lives honestly and intentionally.
Do me a favour — go through this list and tell me if you relate to any of these things:
- You find it hard to strike a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with someone
- You constantly fall into boring, shallow conversations — on weather, politics, city life, bitching about classmates — because they feel “safe” and don’t risk offending anyone.
- The idea of openly asking someone out scares the shit out of you because of possible rejection.
- You don’t dress extremely well or groom yourself to the extent you could because you don’t want to stand out.
- You can’t share your thoughts and opinions with others because you fear judgment and rejection.
- You’re stuck at a job/degree you hate because you don’t want to upset or disappoint others, such as your parents.
Do any of these problems feel relatable? If yes, then you suffer from a problem — the inability to make yourself vulnerable.
For many, the concept of vulnerability is nauseating. It conjures up images of people holding hands in a tight circle as they listen to that one former coke addict tear up as he recounts how he lost his family and fortune to drugs, or something like that.
Sure, that is one aspect of it. But vulnerability is far simpler, more mundane, and kind of boring, and yet it is the key to making the most important, long-lasting emotional connections of your life.
Everyone has had a different upbringing, and most of us aren’t taught how to handle our emotions in a healthy way and express them freely. For whatever reason — childhood trauma, abusive household, non-supportive parents — we grow to be ashamed of our emotions and learn to stifle them.
We grow up seeking validation from every person we meet because the thought of not being liked scares the shit out of us. We seek acceptance and attention from people that are not worth the effort because we are scared of being lonely. We devise various elaborate fake personalities to conceal our true selves from others. Our lives revolve around people-pleasing, hiding our insecurities, covering our tracks, and blaming others for our situation.
If you feel personally attacked, you are in the right place. Read on, soldier, as we dive deep into the science of making and holding onto healthy relationships via honesty and vulnerability. This is your no-bullshit guide to making some of the most meaningful connections in your life just by being yourself.
What is vulnerability?
While there is a lot of shame surrounding vulnerability, there is even more confusion. It’s understandable; most of us have grown up bottling up our emotions and, therefore, never learning what true vulnerability is.
As a fellow blogger described it:
“Vulnerability is consciously choosing to NOT hide your emotions or desires from others.”
That’s it. Expressing your thoughts, opinions, desires, and emotions with others, regardless of what they think of you. Being vulnerable is intentionally exposing aspects of yourself that are embarrassing or make you uneasy. Admitting insecurities. Sharing fears. Telling secrets.
Practicing these things appears simple and straightforward and you might think you are doing all of it, but trust me, you are not, or you won’t be here listening to a douchebag on the internet tell you how to fix your relationships.
While it may be simple, being vulnerable is not easy. It requires you to stick your neck emotionally in some way, which is risky and often comes with real consequences. When we try to open up to somebody, it rubs against our deep-seated beliefs of unworthiness and inadequacy. We start to feel self-conscious and insecure. The deeper the conversation gets, the more nervous and socially anxious we become.
And that is the key. Being truly vulnerable is showing yourself to the world and being willing to accept the consequences, no matter what.
Maybe you are insecure and in self-doubt, and exposing your flaws to the world frightens you. Maybe you think that if you let your walls down, you will repulse others and drive them away, and that you will.
I’m not here to tell you that everyone will accept your true self and be friends with you forever. No — your honesty and vulnerability will repel some people, and that’s a good thing. When you are vulnerable, sometimes people freak out a little bit but guess what, those aren’t the people that will be important in your life anyway. Those aren’t the people you will be friends with or date. If they can’t understand and accept the real you, you are better off without them. There is no shame or embarrassment in this; it’s just expression and compatibility, and sometimes people are incompatible. And that’s totally fine.
Those people themselves are struggling with self-esteem and expressing their emotions, and they are petrified when others are vulnerable to them. They don’t know how to respond, so they withdraw. You will offend some people, and scare others away. But worry not; you will soon find out that vulnerability is the path to true human connection.
Vulnerability is sharing parts of ourselves that we think are shameful and result in us being alienated. Shame is the unpleasant, self-conscious emotion that makes us feel that our true, authentic selves make us unworthy of human connection. It is why when we are vulnerable, it doesn’t feel like it is our secrets that are at the stake, but it is our entire being.
As Psychologist Marisa G. Franco described it in Platonic:
“What feels vulnerable for us reveals something deeper about what we’ve learned to be ashamed of.”
It is by breaking down the emotional wall between yourself and the world and showing your rough edges that you achieve intimacy. Exposing yourself, putting yourself in compromising situations, and taking rejections without beating yourself are what help you develop resilience.
Why is vulnerability important?
Vulnerability is the key to fostering deep, meaningful relationships, whether it is friendship or romantic relationships. It keeps us honest with each other and ourselves, breaks down walls, eliminates the potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding, and allows us to be wholly, unapologetically ourselves.
As Robert Glover put in No More Mr. Nice Guy, “Humans are attracted to each other’s rough edges.” People can see through the glossy, smooth appearance that we present, and they are revulsed by it. Counterintuitively, people are more attracted to our insecurities and accepting of our flaws. This is the paradox of human nature — it is the aspects of ourselves that we are too afraid to share that draw people towards us the quickest and in the most authentic and intimate way possible. Your most attractive self is your true self.
It is natural to want to guard yourself and your emotions. In fact, holding thoughts and feelings to your chest and away from others is a form of protection; it’s a coping mechanism, and a very common one at that.
However, being too closed off to others — especially in a romantic relationship or a close friendship — can backfire. The bond itself is less satisfying and susceptible to breaking. You always feel like you don’t know the other person and they don’t know or understand you. You can talk to them for hours without saying anything. You see them all day without them seeing you for who you really are.
Deep friendship is impossible without vulnerability. Without it, friendship deflates to companionship, which is nice but truncated, since friendship offers us much more.
If you don’t allow yourself to be vulnerable, your friends and partner never understand what you want from them. They undoubtedly respond in unsatisfactory ways. And then, because you don’t feel supported or understood, you resent and blame them rather than owning your feelings.
All relationships are prone to fissures; vulnerability helps fill in the cracks.
How to be vulnerable?
People often mistake vulnerability for oversharing or airing your dirty laundry to the world. More on that later, but for now, let me share some healthy ways you can be vulnerable with the people around you, so you don’t come off as a desperate looney tune.
Admit you are bad at something
We all know someone in our lives who is bad at something, and yet they openly brag about how good they are at it. Well, there’s nothing more cringe-worthy than watching this person make a clown of themselves. The more they try to impress others with what kind of talented genius they are, the more desperate they appear.
But on the other hand, if someone openly admits they suck at something, you probably end up respecting them for their honesty.
You can tell your friend that you are bad at something and ask for their help. If you suck at dating, confide in a friend and ask for feedback on what you can do to improve. If you have a hard time connecting with people and you think it’s affecting your life in some way, tell some of your peers or coworkers and see if they have any advice for you.
The point is you’re not trying to be someone you are not. You accept yourself, with all your flaws and faults. People see this as incredibly confident behaviour and respond in kind.
Take responsibility instead of blaming others
I recently performed horribly on a math test and started blaming my teacher for asking out-of-course questions, even though I hadn’t studied shit for that test. It is something we are all guilty of: blaming others for our life problems. For example:
- The mess of a man who says his ex-girlfriend dumped his ass, which is why he smokes three packets a day and can’t hold onto a job for more than a few weeks.
- The feminazi blames all men for her terrible dating life just because some playboy cheated on her in high school fifteen years ago.
- The student who is always busy doing stupid shit instead of studying and ends up blaming his teachers for his horrible performance when he should’ve opened the book every once in a while.
The reason taking responsibility for your own shit is so powerful is that it puts you in control of your life. When you blame others for your problems, you give them control over you. If your dating life sucks because all men are horrible womanizers then why bother looking for ‘the one’? If your teacher is going to ask out-of-course questions, why study? If your ex is the reason you are so miserable, what’s the point of trying to change yourself?
When you accept responsibility for your shit, you retake control over your life. You can do something about it. Your partner cheated on you, that was depressing, and it hurt. But it is your responsibility to let go and move on.
You may not be to blame for your current situation, but you are responsible for staying in it.
It’s just that simple. By accepting responsibility for your problems, you are telling the world: “This is my mess, and I will take care of it. I am not perfect, and that’s okay.”
Tell someone off they’re being insensitive
I cannot emphasize how important it is to establish healthy boundaries in relationships, whether it is with friends, partners, family, or coworkers. In any relationship, boundaries define where things like our personhood, our identity, our responsibility, and our control begin and end relative to the other person.
Establishing boundaries and telling someone when they are being hurtful or insensitive are surefire ways to be vulnerable. But it can be difficult to tell someone off when they are needling at our sore spots, or just being pricks. Most people wear thick skin and keep on tolerating insults and taking terrible blows to their self-esteem. They then end up beating themselves up for why people judge them so much.
Being vulnerable could be as simple as telling someone they were being insensitive. By doing this, you are making your feelings about the other person known. You are telling them they’ve hurt you. It is risky, and things could escalate. Some will take it more personally, but others will be sorry and apologize for being a dork.
Standing up for yourself and others is a powerful form of vulnerability.
Now, I should add that there is a difference between calling someone out when they are being hurtful, and calling someone out because you disagree with them. The latter is not vulnerability — it’s just you being an asshole. It makes things worse, not better. I’ve warned you — don’t do it.
Tell someone you admire them
Telling others how you feel about them is the ultimate form of vulnerability, and it is also the scariest and easiest to mess up.
It could be as simple as telling someone they are cute or letting your friend know how grateful you are for their support and presence. It can be expressing your love for your parents or confessing to your crush how you feel about them.
All these require you to be vulnerable because you never know how others feel about you. Maybe their feelings don’t match yours, which could create an imbalance and change the dynamics of the relationship. If not done correctly, you might end up making the other person feel awkward, or come off as desperate and needy.
Discuss an experience
Maybe you need to process some of your thoughts and emotions before you feel comfortable sharing them with the people in your life. Maybe you are trying to draw boundaries and figuring out your “off-limit” topics, things you are not willing to share, such as sexual history, certain financial or health details, and grudges you haven’t been able to let go of.
In that case, you can start small and open the channels of vulnerability by discussing what’s happening in your life. Maybe you are dealing with something new at work or school, trying out a new hobby, or reading a new book. It can be anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be negative and traumatic. It could be something that left you beaming and joyous.
Doing this makes the other person feel included in your life and seals the bonds of friendship and connection.
Keep a journal
It is understandable that you would feel uneasy about attempting any of the above, and that’s okay. Many people jump into vulnerability head-first, only to hit the rock bottom pretty fast and pretty badly. Some are even emotionally scarred and more traumatized than they were to begin with.
Being comfortable with vulnerability is a gradual process. It requires practice, and you have to understand the timing, context, and level of trust in a relationship before you can comfortably share yourselves with the other person. It’s a trial-and-error process, but you’d eventually figure it out.
Keeping a journal is one way to practice vulnerability at a beginner’s level. Chronicle your emotions by logging moments when you felt anxious or vulnerable throughout the day. Notice patterns in what made you feel vulnerable and how reacted to those situations. Writing down your feelings may help you better process them and confront such anxieties in the future.
Fear of vulnerability also stems from low self-esteem. You can also write down what you love about yourself. It can increase your confidence in navigating challenging situations.
Many of us have devised elaborate fake personalities that we use to compensate for our feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy. In our ceaseless attempts to make others believe in our flawless public facade, we eventually delude ourselves into believing in it. Vulnerability is all about honesty, and in order to be honest with others, first learn to be honest with yourself. Write down your feelings as you experience them — unfiltered — keeping in mind that no one will ever read what you are writing. Once you are honest and accepting of the parts you deem shameful, it becomes easy to share them with others and be vulnerable.
What vulnerability isn’t
If you’ve read this far, you might have developed a good understanding of vulnerability. It would mean I have hit the bullseye, or I could have missed completely, and you have misunderstood vulnerability for emotional psychopathy. To make sure that you walk away from this with your sanity intact, we’re going to dispel some of the mythology about vulnerability.
Typically, most people mistake vulnerability for 1) a “tactic” to get people to like them, b) using trauma dumping as a way to be vulnerable, c) sharing everything with everyone, d) considering vulnerability as weakness, and e) thinking they can be vulnerable with anyone.
Vulnerability is not a tactic
A common problem people make is that they think of vulnerability as a “tactic” to get people to like them. For example, they might think: “Okay, if I tell this person something I normally don’t tell people, he/she will like me and love me forever.”
Well, no.
If you are telling someone you have a strained relationship with your father, thinking they would feel pity for you and start liking you, you are not being vulnerable. You are being manipulative. It does not mean you are being genuine with the other person; it means you are desperate and needy. You are using them to get validated.
The problem here is that it is inauthentic. Vulnerability is not about what you do, it’s about why you do it. The intention behind the behaviour makes it truly vulnerable (or not).
You crack a joke because you think it’s funny, that’s vulnerable, or because you want others to think you are funny, that’s manipulation.
You tell someone you feel down lately because you are depressed, that’s being vulnerable. Or you need attention and want them to pity you, that’s being desperate.
You tell someone you cried watching The Fault in our Stars because you think Augustus shouldn’t have died like that, that’s being vulnerable. Or you tell them you cried because you want them to see your “sensitive side”, that’s needy.
In conclusion, the goal is not to look vulnerable, but to be vulnerable. So please, don’t go out there airing your dirty laundry for others to sniff because you think they would like you. People have a keen nose for desperation, and you would make a clown of yourself. Remember: No matter what you do, you can’t impress people; they either like you, or they don’t. But if you keep trying to impress them, you will push them away. No one likes a try-hard.
Trauma dumping and vulnerability
Another mistake people make is they see trauma dumping as a way to be vulnerable.
Trauma dumping is when you suddenly regurgitate an inappropriate amount of emotions and personal history into a conversation, usually to the utter horror of the other person.
Trauma dumping is problematic because on one hand, it is genuinely vulnerable, but on the other hand, it is repellant and unattractive. Because by vomiting out all of your emotions, you are, in effect, being honest and open about how pathetic and desperate you are. And whether hidden or exposed, neediness is never attractive.
But trauma dumping can also be helpful. When you unload your bottled-up emotions, you realize how you feel. It makes you aware that something needs fixing and helps you heal. Eventually, you have to be accountable for your own thoughts and feelings and work them out. Or you are going to be angry and frustrated with everything and everyone.
Vulnerability is sharing everything with everyone
Although others appreciate our vulnerability much more than we’d assume, there are no guarantees. Even if people are less likely to judge us than we might think, there’s still a real possibility they will.
The risk of rejection is heightened when engaging in pseudo-vulnerability of oversharing. Oversharing is “pseudo-vulnerability” because true vulnerability is authentic and oversharing isn’t. Oversharing is a defence mechanism; it’s a strategy to reduce our awareness of and distance from — rather than acknowledge — feelings we find threatening. When we overshare, we protect ourselves from the anxiety of rejection. Oversharing is compensating for our insecurities, and that’s not vulnerability.
Vulnerability is expressing insecurities directly. Oversharing, like most defence mechanisms, occurs compulsively, an automatic twitch to reduce our anxiety. True vulnerability, in contrast, is deliberate and happens after we believe that we are safe with someone.
Instead of confessing that we like and trust the person we are interacting with, which occurs when we share gradually, oversharing conveys that we need to get something off our chest. It feels cathartic; it feels liberating. But it is neither of those things. Oversharing reflects not the safety we feel in a relationship, but the lack thereof that we are trying to compensate for.
But even if we don’t overshare, vulnerability is still a risk. Sometimes people do judge us when we are vulnerable. But if they do, it tells us more about them than it does about us. The avoidantly attached, for example, don’t respond well to vulnerability. Their discomfort with emotions eclipses the trust, intimacy, and love inherent to the interaction. Others’ feelings needle their insecurities and threaten to expose what they repress in themselves.
Being vulnerable is being weak
True vulnerability is scary. If people fear sharing something that feels vulnerable, they fear looking vulnerable even more. But is expressing vulnerability admitting weakness? Simple answer: No.
Okay, I know no one liked that one-word answer. So here’s a deeper version of it.
People who have their self-esteem tied to others’ attention are the ones who mistake vulnerability for weakness. They believe that being vulnerable, by genuinely exposing parts of yourself that you deem shameful to others, would make them look wretched. They would come off as a pathetic loser, and no one would want to be with them. After all, if you can’t get a handle on your emotions and man up, you are weak. Right?
Well, no. See, vulnerability is not about losing or winning; it’s about having the courage to show up and be seen where we don’t have control over the outcome. It is accepting and sharing your mistake, flaws, and insecurities without the fear of judgment. It is difficult to open up to someone, to show them parts of you that you thought you would take to the grave. It takes bravery to reveal secrets. It takes trust and optimism to assume that others won’t cast you off. Accepting that you are angry or grieving requires strength. So vulnerability is the greatest yardstick of courage and strength.
So it is not a vulnerability that is weak; it is the absence of it that is. People who openly grieve and cry their eyes out are not weak — they are strong and have the courage to accept and reveal their fears and mistakes. In contrast, the people who don’t open up, who don’t accept their flaws and insecurities, who keep the persona of a sigma lone wolf in no need of help are the ones who are weak. The fear of judgment and rejection terrifies them to the core. So they build a wall between themselves and the world that protects them from emotional intimacy.
But there are elements of weakness in it too. A fever is crippling — it weakens your body, but at the same time it shows that its internal warriors are alive and doing what they are supposed to do. They’re fighting a long battle against foreign invaders, and your body boils up in the process. So on the surface, a fever weakens you in the short term, but it makes your body resilient and robust in the long term.
Vulnerability captures the same multitudes. You appear weak as you share your insecurities and flaws with the world, but deep down, it makes you more resilient, more confident, and more accepting of your imperfections. It helps you grow from your pain and heal.
By being vulnerable, we embody the yin and yang of strength and weakness. Suppressing fever does not cure the underlying cause of it; it compromises our body’s defence mechanisms and makes the pathogen more potent. Similarly, suppressing vulnerability does not abolish weakness; it impedes us from practising strength alongside it.
Weakness is an inherent part of life — there are moments when we are undone, frail, or in dire need of support and rest. So the problem is not with weakness, but in the way, we stigmatize it, so much so that we don’t allow ourselves to reflect on what it reveals about ourselves, our human condition, and our relationships.
You can be vulnerable with anyone
The frustrating thing about vulnerability is that it depends not just on you, but on whoever you are being vulnerable with. If your vulnerability lands on empathetic ears, it can deliver ample benefits. But if not, it can backfire, and you feel worse.
Part of practising vulnerability is being comfortable with not being vulnerable. If your experiences and intuition are telling you that this person would not respond kindly to your vulnerability, leave it. Don’t bother. You are under no obligation to dump your emotional trauma on anyone. In time, you will find the people you can be vulnerable with. Just don’t beat yourself up if they are not around yet. You are free to conceal things from people you don’t trust.
But it is not easy to know who to trust. Perhaps the best sign someone is trustworthy is that they have responded well to your vulnerability in the past. But the liability here, of course, is that by the time you have given them this opportunity, you lose control over the outcome; it’s too late to protect yourself if they end up dismissing you. You can reduce the risk by practising what Marisa G. Franco calls “scaffold vulnerability” — being vulnerable with a trustworthy confidante before shooting your shot with the person whose trust is not a sure bet. By being vulnerable with a trustworthy person, you feel secure and comforted. And if the other person dismisses you, you won’t feel as much pain as you would have if you’d approached them directly.
When we act or think in all-or-nothing ways — like never or always being vulnerable — our rigidity hides deeper scars. I’ve heard these scars from friends who say things like, “No one cares”, or “You can’t trust anyone, and everyone will let you down at the end of the day.” If we assume one thing is true, we aren’t evaluating the situation to determine whether a behaviour will or won’t work; we are projecting. It’s discernment, attention to the present moment, and the openness of the ears in front of us that will allow us to carve out nourishing spaces for our vulnerability.
Without discernment, we risk offering our vulnerability to the people who hurt us the most. Freud called this “repetition compulsion” — we return to the source of our pain for healing because what’s more validating than validation from the person who hurt us the most? Repetition compulsion is why people return to toxic friends and exes, hoping they would be comforted by sharing their pain with the friend who only makes jokes in response. But this urge leaves us in more pain because if a person hurt us once, they might do it again.
In the end, it boils down to a simple but profound realization — if someone has a history of rejecting your vulnerability, don’t assume they’ll change. Don’t look for water in an empty wall. Your vulnerability is too precious for that. Find people who comfort and support you — whether friends, partners, support groups, therapists, or siblings — and turn to them, rather than to the person who you hoped would be different. How often do we expose ourselves to the wrong people because we wish to make them different when we could accept them for who they are and be different ourselves?
Power in Vulnerability
Practising genuine vulnerability is difficult — no one said it was easy. It doesn’t have to feel good. It feels scary — that’s your self-protection reflex kicking in, which you can notice, acknowledge and honour. Even if vulnerability terrifies you, there is no reason to avoid it — it is rewarding in the long run, and the reward is worth taking the risk. I’m sure there are a lot of uncomfortable things you do for some larger, long-term purpose — eating healthy, lifting weights, having difficult conversations, studying for hours on stretch— you feel good about. Vulnerability is similar — the short instances of fear and discomfort will help you build long-lasting and meaningful relationships.
To practice vulnerability, remember that you are doing it not because it is comfortable, but because it aligns with your values. If you value intimacy, emotional connection, friendship, well-being, honesty, self-care, and showing the world your true self — with all your flaws and insecurities — then being vulnerable expresses your values.
Real, genuine vulnerability represents a form of power. The person who can make themselves vulnerable is telling the world: “I don’t care what you think of me. This is who I am, and I refuse to be anyone else.”
Vulnerability makes you resilient. When you expose your weaknesses and insecurities for the world to see, they lose power over you, allowing you to live more honestly and intentionally.
Learning to open yourself up, training yourself to be comfortable with your emotions, and your faults, and expressing yourself without inhibition requires practice. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process, and a gruelling one at that.
But I assure you, it works. If you put in the effort and take the plunge — have difficult conversations, express yourself honestly, and tell the world “This is who I am” — you will find new depth in your relationships. All of your relationships, whether platonic or romantic, will feel more rewarding.
Summary:
Congrats, you made it to the end. Here, have a lollipop. And for you, I have briefly summarized the key points in this article below just so your lazy ass can visit and read them without having to thread through 5000 words again. Take a screenshot, copy and paste it somewhere, or, if you want to go old-school, grab a notebook and a pen and jot it all down.
· Vulnerability is consciously choosing not to hide our emotions, desires, flaws, and insecurities from others.
· Most of our relationships, whether platonic or romantic, suffer from a lack of depth and understanding, which stem from our inability to make ourselves vulnerable.
· Vulnerability can feel scary and uncomfortable because we grow up bottling our emotions and never learning to express them in healthy ways.
· To battle the fear of vulnerability, remember: a) most people don’t judge, and the ones who judge don’t matter; b) your rough edges attract people in the quickest and most authentic ways; and c) vulnerability will lead to some of the most important and meaningful relationships in your life.
· You can start practicing vulnerability by admitting you are bad at something; taking responsibility for your problems instead of blaming others; drawing healthy boundaries and telling people off for being rude and hurtful; telling someone you admire them; discussing your experiences, goals, hobbies with others; and keeping a journal.
· Vulnerability confuses people. So, remember: it’s not a tactic to make people fall in love with you; it’s not trauma dumping; and it’s not oversharing.
· Vulnerability is a strength, but it has elements of weakness too. It makes you weak on the surface, but makes you more resilient, and confident, and helps you heal and grow from your pain.
· You can’t — and shouldn’t — be vulnerable with everyone. Just find the few trustworthy people that can listen and respond to your vulnerability well. Distance yourself from those who kick you while you are down.
· Vulnerability is uncomfortable and terrifying, but the rewards vastly outweigh the discomfort. It gives you control over your life and allows you to live more honestly and intentionally.
