The Benefits of Vulnerability (No, this is not an Oxymoron)

I was kindly reminded today that it can be very difficult to let yourself go into that space of vulnerability. There are so many layers, walls, padlocks, messages, beliefs, PROTECTIONS, and even family rules to work through and increase our awareness of in order to get to those various places of vulnerability that we hold inside of us.

I’m so fortunate to work at a psychotherapy practice that not only encourages my growth, but values my healing and my authentic self.  I have always firmly believed we can only take our clients as far as we have gone ourselves, and my fellow therapists at Counseling Services of Central Florida echo my sentiments. This common belief results in a place of safety, love, and acceptance. I have been continuously given opportunities to look at my triggers, my wounds, and go to that place of vulnerability to move forward in the healing process. I, too, work hard to create a space of unconditional acceptance that will allow my clients to feel safe and secure in being vulnerable.

What keeps us from going “there”?

There are several dynamics that can prevent us from accessing these deeper parts of ourselves. At first glance, vulnerability can appear to be a very scary place. My clinical supervisor shared a wonderful piece of wisdom with me regarding the scariness of vulnerability: If you are physically safe, it doesn’t matter how you feel about it, just go with it – whether it be a behavior or an emotional response. Reminding myself of this has given me the permission to go to emotional and vulnerable places where healing and growth can take place.

Family messages and rules are another big one. How many times were we told not to cry? To feel? That what we felt didn’t matter and we had to do “it” anyway? Or how about the classic, “I’ll give you something to cry about!” Children do not interpret and store messages like we do in adulthood, so even if our parents had the best of intentions, they were not able to meet all of the needs a child has. And, frankly, it’s not fair to assume that they had a manual to tell them how to do it. But, that’s a different blog post for another day. 

Old coping mechanisms that we developed in childhood may also be the padlocks to our authentic self. As children, we created ways to protect ourselves from various situations – abuse, neglect, abandonment, not getting certain needs met, and the list goes on. These coping mechanisms served as our protections, and they worked! There is certainly a place to honor that. However, now as an adult, we often find that these patterns of protection prevent us from having close relationships, going for our dreams, and connecting with ourselves. They can also result in feelings of anxiety, depression, not feeling deserving, and that we are simply not good enough. Ultimately, our patterns of protection keep us an arm’s length away from others, as well as our authentic selves.

What does this place of vulnerability look like, and why is it so important to be willing to go there?

When we are vulnerable, we are being our authentic self. We are connected to our human essence – we, essentially, begin to feel whole as the parts of ourselves that we have denied, or have had little awareness of, begin to interweave with our conscious being. Whenever our wounds are triggered, it’s an OPPORTUNITY to be vulnerable. It is being connected emotionally with our wounds, honoring them, and acting on the behavior that triggered us despite the fear in an appropriate way. This could be asking for financial help, asking for a need to be met, or communicating from a vulnerable place with our partner about our fears, wounds, and healing process. Vulnerability has many faces, but it all leads us through our healing process and allows us to be our genuine, whole self.

Honoring our triggers helps us connect to the wounds at a different level, an emotional level, and when we are in a safe environment with loving individuals or a dedicated, caring therapist, the healing process can take on forward motion. It truly is a beautiful, and freeing, experience.

When we are vulnerable, we are more likely to get our needs met, a concept that may be foreign to many of us considering what our childhoods may have looked like. At our most vulnerable, authentic self, we are in charge of ourselves. We speak our truth in appropriate ways. It opens up avenues that were not accessible to us before because we couldn’t see them through our wounds. We have the connections and relationships we desire with others. We move forward in a career that we love and reach levels of success we couldn’t imagine before. We access our personal power and start living the lives we deserve.

So go ahead – give vulnerability a try. And celebrate the benefits as they unfold. 

“It takes more courage to be imperfect than to be perfect.”

One of my professors stated this during my first year of my Masters program. The very idea of it slapped me across the face and left an impression that I carry with me today.

As many of my fellow Type-A personalities will acknowledge, this is a difficult concept to wrap our mind around. Embrace our imperfections? You mean the very characteristics that make us human? ....What? I think my brain maybe short-circuiting.

As children, we were not under the constraints of society’s dictations of “proper” and “perfect” and “acceptable” behavior. We threw tantrums, we said and asked what was on our minds, we honored our imaginations and played freely. As we started daycare and school, we looked to our authority figures and our friends (who were influenced by their authority figures… see my brilliant blog about this here) on how to behave. We created schemas and categories about the world, what it entails, how we fit in it, and how we prove we are good enough to stay noticed and important.

Overtime, we’ve silenced parts of ourselves that society has continuously told us is not acceptable. We must maintain control by presenting the perfect parts of ourselves. And then become our own worst enemy when our imperfections, our human essence, slip through the bars that imprison these beautiful, and essential, parts of ourselves.

As a result, we are closed off to who we really are. We are closed off to the parts that make us human, the parts that, if honored, would make us feel whole.

We simply cannot live a whole life when the parts of our whole are divided.

Which parts of yourself are you closed off to? Do you apologize for crying because you believe it is a sign of weakness? Are you in a creative rut? Do you miss dancing? Do you need to feel in control all the time? Is it difficult for you to let go of items? Is cleaning excessively essential to relieving your anxiety? What are you holding on to so tightly? What might happen if you actually let it go?  

Ultimately, I sincerely hope can stop interpreting our humanity for weakness. This idea of perfection keeps us wounded.

I would like to encourage everyone, even myself, to increase our awareness of these parts of ourselves that we are unsure of. It is in this place, the place of discomfort, where learning and growth takes place. 

We Could Learn a Little Something from the Zulu....

When I was completing my undergraduate degree, I was introduced to a phrase by a dear friend. This phrase helped me write my admission statement to graduate school, along with my thesis paper four years later. The meaning behind it influences the way I view the world, run my practice, be present with clients, connect with friends and family, and has helped me construct a life I want to live.

“Umumtu ngumuntu ngabantu”

This proverb stems from the South African tribe, the Zulu, and their philosophy of Ubuntu. Loosely translated, the proverb means:

“A human is human through other humans”

The philosophy of Ubuntu embraces the human connection. We are who we are because of our interactions, bonds, and ties with others, whether it be in a supporting or a lead role. In the heart of their community sits values such as interconnectedness, interdependence, and promoting the well-being of all humans. Not only is it promoted, it is consider a societal responsibility to recognize and sustain another’s well-being, along with your own. It’s a healing energy that carries through and bonds generations, teaching the humanitarian tools of compassion, empathy, tolerance, and understanding.

The magnificence of this philosophy lies in the ever-growing connection to our ancestors and our future generations. It’s another way of defining legacy and the impact we have on others. And, inherently, ourselves.

How does this proverb relate to our lives? Think about how all the people in your life have influenced you in some way – the good, the bad, the ugly; for the five minutes they were in your life or the lifetime relationships you’ve sustained. These individuals have contributed to so many aspects of ourselves – how we view the world, how we view ourselves in the world, our understanding of physical and emotional boundaries, our learned behaviors, maladaptive or healthy coping mechanisms, our purpose, our meaning, our understanding of who we are and what we have to give to ourselves and to the world. What it even means to be human.

These same individuals that have influenced us so deeply, shaping who we are or modeling who we want to be, were also shaped by their connections, relationships, interactions. And the cycle moves forward. We are all connected through the lens of Ubuntu.

While we can relate this proverb to empowerment and enlightenment, it also allows us to come from a place of compassion and empathy with our fellow human beings. Even if the continuum of these relationships may not be considered a positive one. Take, for instance, the cycle of abuse. We can move forward in our lives resenting a caregiver, a friend, a significant other, a stranger for violating our sense of safety. We can blame them for the difficulties we face on a daily basis, our inability to maintain satisfying and healthy relationships, for hating ourselves and believing we will never be good enough.

But who is that really hurting?

Not only ourselves, but the interactions and connections we have with others, and the interactions and connections these others have with others….  I think you get it.

What assists in moving forward with this complex healing process is the understanding that the individual who hurt us was also given these same messages and treated in similar ways they treated us. They are wounded, too. Reenter compassion, empathy, tolerance, and understanding; it is in this healing space where the cycle of abuse stops. And this isn't a journey you have to take alone. There are individuals who will help you heal, and as you heal, others innately heal as well.

As a counselor, I find that as my clients start to heal parts of themselves, I continue to heal parts of myself as well. This healing happens without them even knowing my back story. 

In the light of Ubuntu, we are all wounded healers. It is my hope that within this light we all promote the healing and well-being of one another through compassion, empathy, tolerance, and understanding.  This is how we are connected. This is our common ground. And this is where our healing process starts. 

The Power of Language: Saying Yes to Ourselves

Over the last few years, I have discovered the power that language has over us and the lives we lead. I was completely ignorant of the pervasiveness of language, the way it continues to shape our lives, our meanings, our purpose, and the relationships we have with ourselves and others.

Language is so powerful it can keep us imprisoned in our depression, anxiety, addictions, low self esteem/efficacy, cycles of unfulfilling relationships, and, well, the list could go on. We can all fill in our blanks here.

On a larger scale, language can keep whole groups of fellow human beings disenfranchised, segregated, discriminated against; language can lengthen the gap of inequity between human beings. It can keep us categorized, in neat little boxes. And when we don’t have the language to categorize, we become very uncomfortable, unsure, confused, and fearful.

Language can change the course of our collective lives and the direction of a nation, helping us to uncover our hopes, dreams, and achieve what it is we most desire. Consider the powerfulness behind the words Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. careful constructed to empower a nation of people to seek justice and promote liberty for all (wo)man kind:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the context of their character.”

I mean, pretty powerful stuff, right?

As history has shown, at a macro-level, the words chosen by leaders have the energy and the force to shape the culture of our society.

At a micro-level, the words we choose to use in our self-talk holds this same supremacy over our lives and the paths we lay before ourselves. I’ve always believed in positive affirmations, but it wasn’t until the last few years of my graduate studies and actually getting my feet wet in the mental health counseling field that I’ve truly encompassed the depth of this idea.

 “I will never be happy in my life,”; “I can’t achieve that, I’m too stupid,”; “I have no purpose, no direction in my life,”; “I’m so fat and ugly, no wonder I’m alone.” I think I got a little depressed just typing these examples of stinking thinking, but we have all told ourselves similar statements.

Our negative self-talk feeds into our insecurities, our depression, our anxieties, our desire to be good enough but just falling short.

And, guess what, our insecurities, depression, anxieties, need to be good enough, feeds into our negative self talk.

“I think, therefore I am,” the philosophical Latin phrase that questions the state of one’s existence, may also be considered relevant in this arena.  I believe our thoughts help to shape who we are and who we are helps to shape our thoughts. How and where we originally learned this pattern of thinking about ourselves is also something I explore with my clients, but that’s another blog for another day.

This cyclical pattern may feel overwhelming at first glance. What can we do to stop such a pervasive pattern and deeply-seeded learned responses? The beauty in understanding the power of language, and saying yes to yourself, is you now have the artillery to do something about it. I tell my clients all the time, you may not be able to control your first thought, but you can control your second one. In doing so, you are giving yourself a gift and saying yes to yourself, your dreams, success, and happiness. You can open many doors to many wonderful experiences and achievements through the power of strength-based language.

Dr. King, Jr. was the change he wanted to see (Thanks, Gandhi), and even though he faced some serious adversity in the face of ignorance, discrimination, and prejudice, he was steadfast in his beliefs, carrying forward and telling himself he could, and had to, continue forth.

So go write on your bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker and stick Post-It notes all over your house: “I am beautiful,”; “I am a success,”; “I am capable of achieving my dreams.”

And when in doubt, always take a moment to find your breath, be present in the moment, and show up for yourself.