Make being Vulnerable your Superpower

Have you ever wondered how you would be received if you were to risk being more open about your true feelings?

 What do you think would happen if you became more openly transparent in your daily interactions?

 Would letting your guard down spell social and professional suicide? 

That’s a fear that holds a lot of us back. 

For many of us expressing our vulnerabilities may feel painful or even feel akin to being weak.

 In others, it may even evoke feelings of shame and fear. 

 So, what does becoming intentionally vulnerable look like?

 It means openly choosing to show our true nature.  It means allowing ourselves to be seen with all our flaws as well as our best points.  It means sidelining our egos in favour of more meaningful exchanges, without the need to appear sorted, perfect, strong, or expert. 

 It’s about confidently expressing ourselves. 

It's about saying - Here I am, accept me as you find me.

It's about risking it slightly and potentially putting ourselves on the receiving end of unwanted feedback or even possibly rejection.

It's about becoming more real!

Why does being consciously vulnerable feel so risky?

 We learn how to be in the world from our earliest interactions and if what we experienced was shame or ridicule for being openly transparent about our emotions we quickly learned to shut down and conceal our true feelings. 

Hey presto, the origin of our projecting a tougher veneer out in the world begins.

 This early conditioning encourages us to cloak ourselves in emotional blankets and we hold back on expressing our authentic selves in favour of feeling safe. 

We then carry these self-protection mechanisms into our adult lives and the results are often seen in perfectionism, appearing to be invincible and sorted, or being overly jocular.

 We don these facades to avoid rejection.  The internal voice says, how can I be respected or loved if I’m to let others see the whole of me?

 “Until you make the unconscious conscious 
it will direct your life and you will call it fate”
– Carl Jung

It feels so scary, are there any advantages to practising vulnerability in my daily interactions?

Yes!

The evidence is there that are many personal growth benefits to choosing vulnerability.

A willingness to embrace ourselves warts and all can have a hugely transformative effect on how we feel about ourselves and can alter how we are perceived and treated.

 We come across as being more authentic.

We are considered to be more trustworthy.

We overcome interpersonal difficulties with more ease.

We grow more as a person.

We create shared empathy and mutual understanding.

I like the sound of this how can I learn to become vulnerable?

 It helps if we try to make sense of where we might have acquired our initial fear of showing up as our more authentic selves.

Taking time to do some personal inquiry work or journaling is a good way to unearth the origins of how we may have adjusted internally to dealing with our childhood experiences in relation to self expression.

 Make familiar the unfamiliar. 

 The chances are you may have spent much of your life protecting yourself from the very same feelings that you are now seeking to connect with!

 Practice owning your thoughts and feelings.  As an adult you are responsible for what you allow yourself to think and feel.

Experiment!

Challenge yourself to hold comfortable and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings in equal measure without seeking to judge.

 Work on forming a loving and nurturing relationship with yourself.

 Give yourself the praise you've always wanted.

 Speak to yourself with a kind and nurturing voice. Learn what you like and what you don’t like. The quality of your internal relationship with yourself determines how well you can nurture your confidence.

Meet your own emotional needs.

 Start with small but deliberate steps to begin pushing outside your usual level of personal disclosure. 

Practice makes perfect. 

Embracing vulnerability takes time. 

Experiment with changing your response when asked to do something that doesn’t align with your values.

 Learn to offer more of an opinion than usual. 

 Maybe let someone close know how you really feel. 

Each day work on mastering the art of becoming a little more brave.

 Actively becoming vulnerable is about making a deliberate and conscious choice to become more open.  

Choosing to be vulnerable means we consciously choose to share a little more of our emotions and feelings to those around us, whilst understanding there may possibly be some small reprisals. 

It’s a behavioural pattern that we must grow into.  It will feel a bit risky at first but the long-term benefits will far outweigh the risk. 

Imagine how good you will feel when you can openly speak your truth without the need to seek validation in return!

 Some people may not like the new more confident you and that's ok because very soon you will attract your own people - your real tribe! 

If you need help with creating the new you be sure to connect with me. I specialise in consolidating the mind power to create limitless confidence.