Welcome to Building Connection Through Authenticity – Part 3: Vulnerability. This is the final post for this series.
You can also check out Part 1: Gestures and Part 2: Lifestyle at any time. Enjoy 🙂
Imagine this:
You’re out shopping with a friend. You try on some jeans and ask your friend how they look. She says, “They look great!”
You try on a few more pairs and get similar responses:
- “Those are cool!”
- “Oh I like those.”
- “They look good!”
Compare this to shopping with a different friend. But instead, you get responses like this:
- “Eh, those are a little too baggy on you.”
- “Hmm, I’m not sure many things would match with that color.”
- “Eww. I’m sorry but those are just…no.”
But then you try on a fourth pair and she says, “Oh, those look great on you!”
Who are you going to trust more? Duh! The second friend. The friend who was being honest with you.
So many people are worried about hurting someone’s feelings that they just say what they think the other person wants to hear. Or they don’t have enough confidence in their own opinions that they are worried they will give bad advice.
So what do they do? They hide their true feelings and don’t say what they really believe.
It’s inauthentic, and it is not how strong relationships are formed.
If you want to make better connections with people, connections that attract people to you and draw them into your world, you need to be as authentic as possible. And one of the best ways to be authentic is to expose yourself – your true feelings – even when it is uncomfortable.
In other words, you need to allow yourself to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability Builds Authenticity
“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.” ~ Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones
This is one of my favorite quotes from the book and the show.
Being called an imp, being reminded of it his whole life, and being treated poorly because of it, Tyrion Lannister learned that it was better to accept it and own it, rather than to avoid it.
He says the above quote to John Snow, a bastard child who is being harassed for having an unknown mother, unlike his half brothers and sisters who were all born legitimately into their royal family.
Tyrion is basically saying, “Accept who you are, because you can’t change it. Don’t be scared to let people know who you really are.”
And that’s a major point I want to make. By exposing and owning your weaknesses, your opinions, your beliefs, your attributes, you are being authentic. You are letting people know the real you.
It can be scary though. What if I end up giving bad advice and he doesn’t end up liking the jeans I said he should buy? What if Kathy stops liking me when she finds out I’m into death metal and gangster rap? What if Sean loses respect for me, or what if he makes fun of me, because I like the show Gilmore Girls. What if Andrea gets insulted when I tell her I like her hairstyle today better than when it was down yesterday?
What if, what if, what if. That’s the scary part of being vulnerable. You are leaving yourself vulnerable to judgement, reactions and offending people. But at the same time, you are taking action towards being the most authentic version of yourself. And people connect very strongly with authentic people.
The Pitfalls Of Vulnerability
As much as we’d all love for it to be as easy as, “Just spill your guts and people will love you,” there’s a little bit of an art form to being vulnerable.
Beware of these common pitfalls:
Pitfall #1: Using Vulnerability To Manipulate People
It should be obvious that you don’t want to do this. For one, if you get caught you can ruin the relationship immediately on the spot.
Second, it’s just mean, rude and disgusting. Don’t tell someone a sad story because you want them to feel bad for you, which will make them more likely to do something you want from them. Just don’t.
Pitfall #2: Using Vulnerability To Make You Look Bad Or Weak
This one is a little trickier. Your goal is to connect with people by allowing people to see all parts of you, including the not-so-pretty sides to your life.
But you still want to show that you have value as a human. If you are talking about anger problems you used to have, you can also talk about what you’ve done to reduce your temper and get better in that part of your life.
If you are talking about how a lot of things are not going well in your life right now, show that, even though it’s scary, you are willing to do whatever it takes to get back on track. Own that you are having problems, but also take responsibility and own that it’s on you to fix it.
Mainly, you are just trying to let people see the real you. And if the real you is someone who is a good person and is constantly trying to better themselves, then they will see those qualities in you.
You need to be confident in yourself. You can be scared, nervous, whatever, but take responsibility for getting through the fear and have confidence that you will find your way through it. And let people see that.
Pitfall #3: Using Vulnerability To Express Unreasonable Feelings
Mark Manson call this emotional vomit. Imagine if, after meeting you for ten minutes, someone left you a 20 minute voicemail expressing their love for you. It wouldn’t make sense since they barely even know you and it would probably freak you out. It would freak me out too.
When being vulnerable, there has to be a legitimate reason for having those feelings. If you are telling someone a story of how you were on the verge of a panic attack from climbing to the top of a tower because heights scare you, that would make sense. Heights scare you, and you were up high. Simple.
So what’s a good way to show vulnerability when you really like someone after only ten minutes of meeting them?
You might say something like: “Wow. I’ve only been talking to you for ten minutes and I’m truly intrigued. It’s not often I meet someone who shares such similar values. We should get together sometime.”
Of course, you only want to say that if you’re being honest. But this is much better because it is reasonable. You are intrigued and want to get to know them better.
You are being honest. You are being vulnerable. And you are confident in your beliefs.
You may or may not get the results you are hoping for by saying this. But people will respect and appreciate a statement like that much more than emotional vomit.
In other words, don’t like someone because you love the idea of being friends with them. Like them for the qualities you’ve seen and truly liked. Then connect on those in an honest fashion.
Pitfall #4: Being Unaware Of Other People’s Feelings
You want to be honest with people, but not if you are just going to make them feel worse about themselves.
If someone isn’t asking for your opinion, you don’t need to tell them that they look heavier than last month. But if they ask you, “Does this outfit make me look heavier?” and it does, you can be honest and say, “Yeah, a little. It doesn’t flatter your body nicely like that other dress you have.”
Especially when you are pointing out a flaw in someone else, you want to show that you aren’t doing it to be mean, only because your a good friend. Here’s an example: “Hey, you put some good effort into this report. Very nice. Do you want to go through it with me and see where we can improve it?”
Rather than just telling them their report wasn’t good or that it isn’t good enough yet and making them feel bad, you made them feel good about their effort and your appreciation, then offered advice for them to accept or refuse.
Becoming Vulnerable
“What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.” ~Brene Brown
Someone I know well tells me all sorts of stories about her kids and life at home with them.
I connect with her deeply when she tells me these stories. But we’re not connecting because of any similarities – I don’t have kids and I don’t have any parenting experiences. And we’re not connecting because I’m impressed with her parenting skills (you’ll see why soon).
I’m connecting because of the honesty and transparency. She tells me all the emotions, the problems, and the things that she does that are totally the opposite of what a perfect parent would do.
I’m not saying she’s a bad parent though. She’s just willing to say the things that most parents would hide. I’m sure most parents have bad moments, they just don’t talk about them because they don’t want to look bad.
And it’s this vulnerability that really allows me to connect with her.
So how can you become for vulnerable? First, understand that vulnerability is closely tied to confidence. A person who is OK with every part of themselves and willing to wear it as a badge of honor is a very confident person. It is not that they are perfect and that is why they are proud of who they are. It is because they are proud of who they are that makes them attractive.
Second, and this is a big hurdle for many people, understand that it is good to be vulnerable. It’s usually not someone’s judgement of us that hurts us, it’s our perception that they might be judging us and our own insecurities that bring us down.
I was the opposite of vulnerable growing up. Sometimes I didn’t want to be judged. Sometimes I didn’t put much thought into how I felt, so I didn’t have much of an answer. And sometimes I purposely withheld feelings and opinions because I believed that the less people knew, the less they could use it against me.
Later in life, I still believed this once I hit the workplace. While it’s true that you need to be careful of what you reveal at work, it prevented me from making good connections at my job that could have really helped my career, or even just helped me make new friends.
Once you truly believe that being vulnerable will help your relationships, then you need to start listening to yourself, and especially to how you feel.
Are you nervous, scared, hurt or curious? Do you even know why?
Try listening to your body and understanding your own feelings. The better you understand how you feel, and why you feel that way, the better you can express those feelings to others.
Then, you need to start opening up. You don’t need to go out and tell the world everything. You can start small. Next time something pops in your head and you feel the urge to just keep it to yourself, consider sharing your feelings or thoughts with the person you are with.
Did they do something that upset you? Did they tell you an embarrassing or sad story that you can relate to?
Try opening up and letting them know how you feel. Try telling them that embarrassing story that you normally wouldn’t say.
Start letting people get to know the real you. Not just the few parts you think they should see.
If this is new to you, it will take some time and practice to get used to it. I know for me, it took a while just figuring out how to articulate my feelings. I had been holding them in so long that I didn’t even know how to express them.
But over time I’ve gotten better at saying how I feel and letting people in. And I’ve noticed a big change in my relationships with people.
The authentic version of you is much better than the “perfect” one.