Being vulnerable is cool. When I first heard that word in this context, I was confused. I was confused because I didn’t know why that word sparked this weird feeling down where my spirit met the bone. Being vulnerable means being weak, right? Why would anyone want to appear weak to others?
Then I started thinking about it. Why wouldn’t anyone want to appear weak to others? We’re all human, we all feel things, and we’re all validated. We don’t want to admit that we need each other. We’re completely helpless in this vastly consuming world of ours. I personally, am an open book- hence why I’m writing to you about the one thing that no body wants to admit. But, when I first heard this word, vulnerable, I hated it. I hated it and I hated the buzzing noise that it left in my head, all because I didn’t want to come to truths with it. Why am I, why are you, and why are we too afraid of each other and ourselves to say, “hey, I’m broken and I’m okay with it but I’m here to learn and to grow”? Since when has there ever been shame in being honest with yourself? I know that I look at myself sometimes and tell myself to put on a face that doesn’t show that I’m broken- that I want to walk down the hallways at school like I don’t have hurt feelings.
I once watched a TED Talk about the different between shame and guilt. I’m going to be completely honest with you, I really don’t remember what the difference was and I don’t really feel like going back and watching it all over again. But! I do know that shame is something that we feel within ourselves, that reflects an image of ourselves, to ourselves. Before anyone completely misinterprets what I’ve written, shame is okay. Shame is there to let us know that we know wrong from right. I feel shame when I reach out to that one person when I’m in need of a person, just to feel loved yet I know that it’s wrong. When I feel that shame, I know that what I did was wrong and I learn from it.
You may now be wondering, “Emily, what the heck does shame have to do with being vulnerable?”. Well my friend, I am here to tell you. Feeling shame is when you start to be honest with yourself, that you aren’t happy with your own choices. Being honest with yourself, is being vulnerable. Being vulnerable is being open to your weakness and your doubts and your worries. IT’S OKAY to admit that you’re defeated and IT’S OKAY to admit that you’re not satisfied, because being able to admit that means that you’re content enough with yourself to let others in. I’m not really sure why people don’t want to let others in. I mean I get it; letting other people in on what you think of as a dark and scary pile of mushy gushy secrets is frightening. Not only is it frightening, but it’s mortifying!
This is when I take a step back and ask myself, “am I seriously contemplating repressing my feelings because I’m too scared of appearing weak?”. Also in this moment I applaud myself because I definitely wouldn’t have asked myself that two years ago. I once spent a month of my summer with this girl, Kelly. Kelly showed me what it meant to be vulnerable. After long, exhausting days of working at a summer camp, Kelly would ask me where I saw light in my day through others. I would respond and tell her just that- how I saw light throughout my day in others. She would then ask me why I let others be the light that I saw throughout my day. I would tell her some answer that probably didn’t make much sense, but now that I look at it I realize that I let others be a light throughout my day because I let myself let them. That’s a lot of ‘let’. But that also takes a lot of vulnerability- to let someone walk into your life of messiness and brokenness and to let yourself let vulnerability do it’s work. There is no shame in being honest, and there is no shame in feeling for each other. There is no shame in being vulnerable.