In Praise of Vulnerability

I was on the phone with a Tony Robbin’s coach, a 30-minute session that I received as gift during the launch of Tony’s new book, Money: Master the Game, 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom.  (I’m halfway through the book and have learned more about money than anything I’ve ever read before.)

After going over the questionnaire I had filled out earlier and talking about my goals, the coach asked me a question. “Do you have a fear of being vulnerable?”

At first, I didn’t want to answer that question with the truth. The strong, confident part of me wanted to say, “Oh no, I’m open and vulnerable all the time. For crying out loud, I teach other people to open up and reveal the beautiful, imperfect parts of themselves!”

But the raw, dig-down, lets-get-real part of me knew the answer. I was afraid to be vulnerable. To open up. To allow hurt, disappointment, and anger to creep in, and heck, bust out. To acknowledge the areas where I’ve failed, said the wrong thing, made the wrong decisions, fell apart, or generally screwed up. Vulnerability is a scary thing.

Yet, vulnerability is what connects us on another level. The more vulnerable we are, the more human we are. The more we show the inner depths of our being, the more we connect with others. In less than 30 minutes, this coach dug deep inside and came up with the reason I was dragging my feet on several things. The good news: fear of being vulnerable is simply a mindset. And a mindset, as we all know, is something we can change in an instant. A slight shift in perspective can change an outcome.

I came across this quote from Brene’ Brown that really resonated with me:

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

Brene goes into depth about the power of vulnerability in her TED talk. . And in the quote above, Brene expands on it as she wraps up her talk:

This is what I have found: to let ourselves be seen,deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee — and that’s really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that’s excruciatingly difficult — to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering, “Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?” just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, “I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive.” And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we’re enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, “I’m enough,” then we stop screaming and start listening, we’re kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves.

It’s well worth the watch!