Why Vulnerability Creates Connections

How Sharing Your True Self Brings You Closer To Others

Being vulnerable shouldn’t be easy. 

When we think of vulnerability, we often think it means sharing what we truly believe instead of giving a “safer” version of our truth. Really, this is closer to radical authenticity rather than vulnerability. 

Still, many people approach vulnerability like this. That’s because it lets them twist its definition a bit. They can be less filtered and more careless in what they say, and chalk up the self-indulgence to being open.

Doing this makes it easy to turn vulnerability into an ego-serving practice rather than an ego-softening one. 

Being vulnerable isn’t saying that clever zinger at the dinner table that will get attention. Being vulnerable is saying something you don’t want to say because it lets others see a part of you that isn’t protected, manicured, and cast in a light of strength. 

But why would we want to give access to that unprotected part of ourselves? What is the point of being vulnerable if all it does is make our soft spots even more exposed? 

We share tender parts of ourselves because it is how we connect with others, and build intimacy and trust.

Most of the time, we move through the world in an intellectual, ego-forward way. In doing so, we all tend to play the human game, dance along together in a pre-approved fashion, and have surface-level interactions that we call connections. 

But we can’t truly connect until we intentionally slow down, breathe into what we are feeling (not thinking), and allow ourselves to speak from our stomachs and hearts. The reason saying the more challenging, honest, and delicate thing creates a real connection is because it is unguarded.

Knowingly saying an unguarded thing extends trust to someone else, and when it is received with care, intimacy is born.

Speaking from this place of vulnerability allows who you are to come out. It also provides the courage for the person you’re talking with to share their deeper selves too. And when both of you speak from the heart, without the armor of the ego, the essence of your inner selves can finally meet.

This isn’t to say that we should always go around spilling our guts to everyone. As the brilliant Brene Brown says, “Vulnerability without boundaries is desperation.” Like anything, time and place are everything.

Simply making a mindful effort to stay connected to our deeper feelings rather than operating on intellectual autopilot is invaluable. It allows us to sense when a meaningful part of ourselves is calling out and asking to come to the surface. 

When we hear it, we can tastefully share a deeper part of who we are and bravely let more of ourselves be known in a world that’s often too scared to know itself.

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