vulnerability.

As you can probably guess by the title of this post, the idea of vulnerability has been heavy on my mind lately. The concept of being vulnerable is incredibly intimidating to me, if I’m being honest. I mean, the definition basically says that being vulnerable leaves you standing on a target range, hoping that you won’t be hit.

Vulnerability, n: the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.

As someone who lived a long time being extremely closed off to even the people I was close to, I know how intimidating it can actually be to think about opening yourself up and giving someone the power to know you well enough to hurt you. Because isn’t that what it is? To be vulnerable, you have to put your trust in someone else that they won’t harm you when you let them in. That they won’t use your vulnerabilities to your detriment. And THAT is what can make being vulnerable so incredibly difficult, especially when someone has broken that trust in the past.

But I have also learned that life is too short to be anything but vulnerable with the people you love. Yes, I am fully aware that this can be incredibly reckless for my own heart, but I feel a lot. I feel so much all the time and I don’t feel like myself when I have to quiet my feelings or emotions to make a situation more comfortable for other people. This doesn’t mean I don’t still protect my own heart, but it does mean that I have worked really hard (and am still working hard) to allow myself to let go more often and really be in whatever moment or situation I’m in. I don’t want to love halfway. I don’t want to experience pain halfway. I don’t want to only live half my life because I am afraid of being hurt. Anyway, don’t the best stories involve a little conflict? I think it’s inevitable, so I might as well be willingly going into it.

I realize that having the gumption to to be that recklessly optimistic and vulnerable seems ridiculous. But I think it is becoming a part of my truth.

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”

That is author Brene Brown has a lot to say about vulnerability. So much so that she has a TEDx Talk on it, has written several books that touch on it, if not focus on it, and she has literally spent the last decade studying vulnerability and the power behind it. I haven’t had a chance to yet, but I have my eyes on her book “Daring Greatly”. It’s one of those books that has quotes from it floating around Facebook like it’s religion, except for some reason her words actually stuck with me and had me thinking instead of just forgetting about whatever shared post I scrolled past over.

But the words that stuck with me the most are these:

“Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of Wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.”

The thing is, the more vulnerable I have worked on becoming, the more I am seeing that I should feel worthy of living the life I am living and feeling all that I can be feeling.

I think being vulnerable is worth the risk.

I think it’s worth being a little reckless.

That’s a lot of what it means to me to be a work in progress. It means being open for things that may be uncomfortable. It means being okay with the chance of being hurt in exchange for the opportunity to be insanely happy or to feel things all the way. Life is too short for anything less.