Why We Love Emotional Vulnerability
When you cried as a child, were you ever told to “toughen up?” To stop before other people could perceive you as weak? From a young age, many of us are taught that being emotional and showing vulnerability is the opposite of strength.
It’s a common misconception reinforced throughout all stages of our life and perpetuated across cultures. When we internalize this mindset, it can be difficult to realize that being emotional isn’t a negative thing.
What Does It Mean to be Emotionally Vulnerable?
A person shows emotional vulnerability when they make the conscious choice to show their true feelings, wants, and thoughts with others.
Despite being taught from a young age that our true emotions are signs of weakness, it’s really a chance for us to show strength. Because being vulnerable is fucking terrifying. Practicing emotional vulnerability is difficult because it means putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations, even subjecting ourselves to the judgement of others.
But if we show others we are able to experience these feelings and also move forward, we demonstrate our capacity to overcome hardships in a very human way. We open ourselves to more experiences and have the chance to navigate failure with grace, rather than closing ourselves off to these opportunities.
At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that emotional vulnerability is not a person’s willingness to overshare or “emotionally vomit.” While vulnerability can bring people closer together, oversharing can be off-putting to the receiver if there’s insufficient trust or established boundaries between two people beforehand. It can also be dangerous for the oversharer, if they subject their personal information to judgment or rejection by people who don’t have their best interests at heart. So while it’s okay to share your emotions and true feelings, make sure you’re in a safe space and that the person you share with is kind, nonjudgmental and trustworthy enough to you.
Five Ways to Practice Emotional Vulnerability
Take responsibility
When we acknowledge we’re at fault or have flaws (because nobody’s perfect) and do so with grace, we share with others that we’re open to learning from our shortcomings. We open ourselves to the possibility that we may be able to reflect, learn, and grow from mistakes. In doing so, we cultivate strength to swallow our pride, show we’re not always perfect, and can take feedback from others to learn and grow moving forward.
Tell people you love them
We tend to think about the risks of being honest with our feelings to other people--what if they don’t love me back? What if they think I’m weird for saying I appreciate them? In reality, there is always the chance you can both benefit from honesty with your feelings. By freeing ourselves from hiding our emotions, we have the opportunity to grow closer to those we care about by giving them our honesty.
Share your interests
When we hide our interests, we hide part of who we are. This makes it difficult to be our honest and authentic selves. At first, it might be embarrassing to share things that are so personal with others. But when we do, we can make ourselves seen by people we share common interests with and find friends we have more in common with.
Being more open with our opinions
There may be people who disagree, but there are equal chances that there will be at least one person who resonates with an opinion you have. By putting it out there, you’re better able to get more of what you do want, and less of what you don’t.
Communicate with someone if they’ve hurt you
This is hard, because we might be scared of hurting other people or making ourselves look bad. However, by being more forward and clear about our needs and expectations of others, we can grow, find closure, and be better about expecting respect and kindness from others.
Why Should We Practice Emotional Vulnerability?
The fears we have surrounding emotional vulnerability are real. Emotional vulnerability can be difficult because we’re at risk of experiencing judgement, criticism or anger from others. We face the possibility of rejection, saying something and getting a reaction we don’t anticipate, or sharing an opinion that upsets others.
However, where there is room for rejection, there is also room for connection. By allowing people to see all aspects of ourselves, we can begin to better understand, feel empathy for, and forgive one another. Emotional vulnerability can help us create stronger relationships, community, and a sense of belonging--because the strongest friendships and relationships come from the willingness to be open and honest.
At the end of the day, emotional vulnerability can help us be more satisfied with ourselves and our relationships with others because we trust that they love us in all our iterations--both as the people we project in day-to-day life, as well as the honest and emotionally vulnerable person we share with those we trust.
Written by Nhatalya Pagtakhan and Lisa Kwan
