Why vulnerability is a big ask
Vulnerability is getting a lot of press these days. Since Brené Brown became a self-help sensation with her TED talk on The Power of Vulnerability, it seems like everyone everywhere is talking about vulnerability as the silver bullet of relationships—romantic relationships, work relationships, and everything in between—and for good reason! We work hard in our society to reduce vulnerability at every opportunity, and it’s often at great relational cost. At best, preventing others from seeing our needs often results in them not getting met. At worst, it results in awful misconceptions about who we are, how important the relationship is to us, and why we do what we do.
So it’s a good thing that we’re talking about it.
One thing that I think gets lost, though, in all the pressure to be vulnerable, is what being vulnerable actually means. What is the cost of this so-simple solution to all relationship conflict? What are we actually doing when we are vulnerable?
Vulnerability means opening yourself up to the possibility of getting hurt. That is its literal definition. And this is where a lot of legit criticisms of Brene Brown’s message come in - it doesn’t really take into account the vulnerability many of us already have in our everyday lives. Many people are already operating from a place of oppression, or reduced power, and so asking those people to bring more vulnerability is complex, to say the least. The point this article makes is a really good one, that being vulnerable is a lot easier when you have built in protection.
The idea of protection is core to understanding the whole picture of what we’re asking, here. We talk a lot about how much courage it takes to be vulnerable, how brave it is to share your fears. And it is! It is brave, it does take courage, and no matter how much protection you have, it is scary. We need help to do this!
Creating a situation where vulnerability is possible takes courage on the part of the person taking the risk, and it takes protection and responsiveness from the other person. This is one of the key points when we’re talking about vulnerability at work. Leaders have to make an environment where that sort of risk is tolerable, where there is some assurance that your job is not in danger if you take that risk. We don't only need to increase courage, we also need to increase safety.
So how does that apply to us when we are talking about vulnerability in the context of a romantic relationship? In Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, being vulnerable is the name of the game. It is exactly what we ask people to do: to tell their partner the deeper, softer emotion that underlies the behaviors we see in a conflict. We ask you to tell your partner about your fears, about your longings, about your needs. How do we do that safely? Pretty much the same way as it’s done outside of therapy—by inviting, encouraging, and being responsive to the risk.
In our romantic relationships, many of us crave knowing our partners more deeply. We may push and prod them, trying to get them to let us in on how they’re feeling inside. And, of course, all that pushing often results in a door shut more tightly than ever. It feels like such a paradox: I can’t find out without asking, and asking makes me less likely to find out. What do I do now??
One idea is to look at the problem a little differently. What if my goal is not to get them to tell me their feelings? What if my goal is to respond to their feelings? If I know that asking them be vulnerable is asking a lot—maybe even extra because I haven’t made it super safe for them in the past, responding to their vulnerability with criticism or disbelief—how can I make it easier for them? How can I make it safer? My goal is now not to get them to respond; it is to make it safe for them to do so.
Vulnerability is a big ask because we are implicitly asking someone to not only trust us not to hurt them, but to make it very easy for us to do so. We’re saying, “Give me your heart and tell me exactly how to crush it,” and we may or may not add a promise that we won’t do exactly that. I want you to add in that promise, that reassurance about your motives, that openness to whatever they say next. I want you to make your request for vulnerability an invitation instead of a demand. You’re doing extra work in order to make it easier for them, because you are asking them for something hard, painful, and/or terrifying.
When we’re trying to be a good audience, a good witness, or a good partner, receptiveness is always a plus. It is a way of helping the other person tell you whatever they want to tell you. When we’re asking for vulnerability, though, I want to encourage us to take that to an even higher level. Because when we ask someone to show us their vulnerability, we are in a position of power.
What does it look like to go beyond receptiveness? What makes a response a good response? Well, it depends. It depends entirely on who your partner is, what they are afraid of, and what will hurt them. This is one of the many cases where the Golden Rule is terrible relationship advice. Do not give them what you need, give them what they need. (Of course, you may not know what that is, and that is part of the information you’re asking for. That’s okay, it’s a work in progress, and some of that work will be trial and error.) Try your hardest to understand what will be a painful response to your partner, so that you can avoid it in this moment.
I say in this moment because the kinds of responses that are often scary or hurtful are things we can’t avoid altogether: silence, feedback, advice, questioning, problem solving, defensiveness. These are all things that have an important place in any healthy relationship. But we can put them aside for a moment, when we are asking a partner to share something that’s hard for them to share. Showing up for them in that moment specifically can make a tremendous amount of space and grace for all the other times where you either have to do that thing they hate, or you lose your own balance and do it even if you don’t want to.
“Be brave! Be vulnerable!” is great advice, actually. Letting trusted others see who we are and what we feel is absolutely essential to a strong relationship of any kind. It is crucial to getting what we need in life, to building intimacy, to being understood by others and by ourselves, and so so much more. Trust and love are built by taking a series of mostly-successful risks.
It is just as important (if not moreso) to recognize our own responsibility in making vulnerability something that is reasonable to ask of others. Creating a safe and responsive environment is how all those little risks become successful. The risk of being vulnerable and the reliable, loving response are the two necessary ingredients for a deepening of intimacy and a richer, more secure bond. Both have to be present for it to work.
