Feeding My Ignorance

There are some words that fall into disuse.  There are other words that people are scared of.  There are words that change their meaning over time.  We all use too many words without thinking.  Words play a huge part in everyone's life.  I'd like to talk about an adjective that we seemingly try to avoid - vulnerable.

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Its not, of course, the only word that falls into that category, however, it has come into focus for me recently for the simple reason that whilst I hate the idea of being vulnerable I have learned that being able to allow yourself to be vulnerable is at the root of many deep and close friendships.

At the bottom of this post is a link to a TED talk by Dr Brené Brown in which she talks about vulnerability.  I'll let you listen to the talk yourself, but Dr Brown talks eloquently about how, simplistically, the population can be divided into two groups - those who are constantly chasing recognition, always wondering if the are "good enough" and those who have a strong sense of worthiness, of love and belonging.

There are some characteristics the groups exhibit - crucially for this post, one of the characteristics of the latter - worthy-ful - group is that they were willing to be vulnerable and to "invest in relationships that may or may not work out", to "do things where there are no guarantees".

Wow!

When we are young we have a series of good friends - these are people who know a lot about us - these are people to whom we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.  I still have some friends from my youth that I can scare by uttering the words "I remember when...."  They know full well that is a threat that I (probably) would not follow through on - but it is true that some of my best friends have secrets that they hope I will not share.  (and yes, the same is probably true in reverse)

We are most vulnerable with our husband or wife.  Here we share everything, the closeness of the relationship ensures that vulnerability is high - in all sorts of ways.  If you are unwilling to be vulnerable to the other person in that relationship, then there is every likelihood that the relationship will hit the rocks at some point.

I am fortunate - and I say that carefully - that I am able to be vulnerable to certain people.  As a rule, I still hate the idea of vulnerability and I will try my best to avoid putting myself in such a position - at least with society at large - but with my family and a few good friends I allow myself the 'luxury' of being vulnerable - and it pays back handsomely.

In all of the best of these relationships I realise that I have indeed been willing to invest in it even when there is no guarantee that it will work out OK and most certainly without expecting anything out of it.  I have been willing to give of myself without any expectation of getting anything back in return - and it works.  I think that I have written elsewhere about asymmetric relationships - where one party naturally has more to lose than the other (or more to gain) - these can be worked through successfully where that part is willing to be vulnerable to that loss.

There is no doubt that I will continue to be rather risk averse in the vulnerability stakes - I can't see that changing.  However, I do see the fact that in order to make a relationship work vulnerability needs to be at the heart of it.