Experiencing Vulnerability as the Path to More You

Are you alive? Are you human? Excellent. You’re in exactly the right place.

Did you know that being human automatically means you are vulnerable? You have limits and that’s just reality. And as bizarre as it may seem, your body lets you know the exact moment you are experiencing vulnerability. Every time. It’s automatic, like a built-in security system.

What most of us do not realize is that our body sets off an alarm bell to signal vulnerability. How? Muscles tighten and the nervous system feels agitated. We experience unrest. And guess what? Even though it can feel downright horrible, facing and feeling this discomfort is a very good thing for two reasons: 1) because denying reality only serves as a launch pad for a host of suffering, and 2) facing reality, no matter how painful, grows capacities for greater authenticity, resilience, and connection.

Source: Enrique Meseguer/Pixabay

We are not the boss of everything

Vulnerability means we are not the boss of everything that happens to us. External forces including time, the economy, physics, viruses, weather, our internet provider, and—most commonly—other people, often determine whether, how, and when things happen. As if that weren't enough, forces inside us, our DNA, hormones, and emotions factor heavily in the outcomes of every situation.

Vulnerability is not weakness, it’s not intrinsically bad, and it’s not a problem to be fixed. Vulnerability simply means that we humans face limitations in our single-handed quest to control the outcome of things we long for.

We are all born with longing and we all face limits, and that is painful

Longing is a beautiful, motivating force within us. Desire moves us to reach for things, to open ourselves to others and the world, and to risk being our true selves. Longing inspires a child to sit up and reach and crawl and walk. Longing inspired me to become a psychologist and to write a book. But we also have limits to being able to guarantee the outcomes we long for. There is a gap between our best efforts and other forces that contribute to how or when or whether that outcome occurs. In the gap between our longing and our limits, unrest stirs us with uncomfortable sensations of tension and agitation. The gift of unrest is it calls us home to the body in the precise moment that your emotions are rising.

Try to absorb the fact that unrest is a very good thing because it wants us to pay inner attention in the optimal moment to feel emotion and grow. Without this discomfort, we wouldn’t know to turn our awareness and say a warm hello to our humanity. Just as thirst alerts us to the need for fluids, prompting us to drink water to avoid dehydration and optimize physical health, so it is with unrest calling us to tend to our inner selves to avoid suffering and optimize emotional health.

Come home and grow; feelings aren’t dangerous

This is so important. In facing the pain of our limitations with compassion, we grow. The emotions evoked by uncertainty and limits are adaptive. That means they arise to help us come to terms with reality and accept what is. These are the times we are forced to wait for something we long for, or don’t know the answer, or can’t fix something. When something won’t change in the timing or way we want, or when an unexpected feeling rises and we’re not sure where it came from or where it’s going or how long it will last—that’s the moment we’re invited to come home and to grow. Unrest signals you right then.

Coming home with inward-facing attention, feeling those uncomfortable sensations with patience and precision, means actually experiencing unrest. We discover that uncertainty, limitations of control, and our feelings are not actually dangerous. We don’t have to automatically leave ourselves in moments of vulnerability. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but we can feel it all and be OK. We are bigger than our difficult feelings.

But there is a catch. Isn’t there always?

Unrest means to call us to come home to the moment in the body. But embedded in our neural wiring is a reflex that makes us want to run from the tension and agitation. This makes experiencing unrest incredibly challenging. In my book Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth, I outline the many reasons why we are primed to reject and neglect and catastrophize the moment unrest gets our attention. The bottom line is that instead of tuning in, we escape our body by telling ourselves "what if" worry stories about the future and "woulda shoulda coulda" regret stories about the past. In this way, we reject ourselves in the truth of our humanity. And the ways we reject ourselves make us feel unworthy, isolated, anxious, and depressed. We may want to be a superpower warrior, but it just isn’t so. Reality ain’t budging.

Our vulnerability is not something to run from. It’s something to embrace and soothe, allowing us to feel more authentic and more resilient, so we can take more healthy risks and bounce back from difficulty while we connect more deeply with others.

Wow. One more time for the cheap seats. By tuning inward when unrest stirs, we access healthy emotion and become more truly ourselves, more secure, and capable of greater intimacy.

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Source: Michaela/Pixabay

It may be simple, but it’s not easy

Want to try? You will have to choose to override your innate wiring to avoid discomfort. Ready?

Step 1: Make a wish. Right now, think about something that you long for. Meeting the partner of your dreams, landing that shiny new job opportunity, getting your Aunt Ingrid to drink less vodka, or maybe getting your dog to quit barfing on the new carpet.

Step 2: Feel. Now, here’s the important part—stop and feel how none of that is 100% up to you right now.

Step 3: Explore. This is where it gets tricky. Note how your body braces and then go deeper into that feeling without trying to change anything. Pay slow attention to what you feel. Really feel it. No, I mean really feel it. All warmth and no judgment.

Step 4: Sloooooow down. Go slowly, slower than you think possible. Stay here until you begin to feel a small shift. A slight release in tightness.

Step 5: That’s it. That is the moment of coming home. The discomfort was not danger and your body can feel your presence. With the nervous system arousal lowered, you are able to open to your feelings that want to help you come to terms with reality. That is success.

Worthy, powerful, and more human

In experiencing vulnerability, we demonstrate to ourselves that we are worthy of attention even when we don't feel good. Especially then. We find we are powerful enough to feel and deal with limits and uncertainty. We can face and feel our emotions. We emerge more human, and more ourselves.