V is for Vulnerability: The Glue of Your Relationship
Vulnerability is the glue in life and relationships. Without it you would not be able to connect with those around you. Well you could but only on a surface-to-surface level. Vulnerability allows you to connect deeply from heart to heart.
But as important and valuable as it is, vulnerability for many of may be hard and scary. Actually I might even go as far as to say for most of us. Sure maybe you can share with the barista at the coffee shop that you need a coffee but sharing the deep heart needs and desires with the person that matters most? That is a whole other situation.
I saw on Instagram recently a question that Esther Perel posed asking: “What is one thing you would like to do differently in your relationships?” Hundreds of women responded and not surprisingly to me many wrote about how they wanted to be more themselves and to share themselves through more vulnerability. Here are just a handful of those responses so you can hear what other women around you are also feeling around vulnerability:
“I would like to be able to show vulnerability to people I care about. I have incredible deep emotions but can’t often let people see them, so they think I’m a happy-go-lucky bubbly person with high walls. They aren’t wrong.”
“I want to remove all the insecurities from my head and be honest with what I really want out of that relationship. Straight forward conversation.”
“To be as open and as vulnerable as possible. It’s the hardest. But the healthiest.”
“Being more vulnerable”
“I want to feel safe and empowered to say things that are hard or uncomfortable”
“Be more open about my feelings”
“To say the thing or ask the question. Whatever it is that seems scary. Be honest and vulnerable as I can.”
“Express my feelings yet more honestly”
“Dare to be me. Be vulnerable”
Every day I hear similar thoughts from women in my work that vulnerability is hard and as a result, their true selves and their hearts are hidden away both inside the bedroom and out. So if you find vulnerability tricky and scary and are ready find more ease with vulnerability, know you aren’t alone and that you are capable of freeing your heart.
What is Vulnerability?
Vulnerability occurs in two directions. One one side it’s knowing yourself, including your needs, wants and desires, and sharing that with your partner. Often times vulnerability can be cast in the light as bad or “weak”, especially for men. But being able to be vulnerable in front of other people takes strength and courage. It is one of the strongest things we can do to take our heart and share it outside of our protective walls where there is a risk that it won’t be received well. As important as vulnerability is it’s also just as important to share your heart with safe others. So I want you to know that I’m not asking you to willy nilly toss your heart out at anyone and everyone. You do need to be discerning about who is safe to share with.
Vulnerability with boundaries creates safety.
Vulnerability is not only sharing your heart but it is also allowing your partner to share their own heart including their own needs, wants and desires with you and letting them touch your heart. It’s the heart to heart conversation. Something I cal Naked Heart Conversations. Vulnerability is not just in sharing more of yourself and the depths of your heart, but to also receive the depths of the heart of others . You need both for your relationship with your partner in a beautiful back and forth Naked Heart Conversation.
Not sure what to do when someone shares their own vulnerability? Check out this wonderful video by Berne Brown on Sympathy Versus Empathy. And if you haven’t checked out her work yet I say run to (well click to) Amazon right now and get her books. She is an amazing resources on vulnerability and the shame that blocks us.
Why You Aren’t Vulnerable
What tends to happen for women is many learn that being vulnerable is not OK. We hear and experience many things that send the messages of don’t act this way, don’t say that, be quiet, act like a lady. We learn that if we say or do a certain thing then the people around us may not respond positively. And having people respond positively is, well, a positive thing. Or perhaps you experienced negative things that sent the message to you that to be open, playful and you were not OK or safe. So you learned to lock your heart down and portray a chameleon version of yourself. The People Pleaser in us is born when we feel the need to protect our heart by trying to please others, which leads to a massive lack of vulnerability. Your heart is safe inside your walls but it is also imprisoned, along with your freedom, happiness and intimacy.
As the wonderful Jonathan on the show Queer Eye on Netflix so accurately says: “You can’t selectively numb feelings so if you try to numb your vulnerability you also numb joy, happiness, connection. You can’t have connection, joy, and happiness without vulnerability.”
I want you to consider what blocks you from being more vulnerable. What fear puts it’s foot in front of the door when you even think about opening it and sharing your heart? Is it a fear of being judged? Being seen? Of not being enough? Is it a fear of that person leaving (hello abandonment wounds)? Or not being liked (I’m raising my hand here: fear of not being liked and therefore being abandoned, which fed into people pleasing and perfectionism). Slow yourself down and take some time to ask your heart what it’s afraid will happen if it shares more with your partner. Once you are curious about what the foot in front of the door is you can begin to work with it. You can’t change what you don’t know or avoid.
Why You Need Vulnerability in Your Relationship
Vulnerability is the thread that weaves a hammock underneath your relationship. You need it to support the relationship and to allow you both to comfortably and safely relax back. If you only contribute a few threads here and there then the hammock will be weak and won’t be able to hold the relationship. This can actually end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, if you don’t share more of yourself for fear the relationship won’t last and they will leave, then the hammock of your relationship will be a thin, straggly thing and it won’t be able to hold the relationship. Then guess what? It won’t last. Thus, reinforcing your belief that “relationships don’t work and people leave me so why be vulnerable?”. Further, your partner is contributing to the relationship hammock through vulnerability and you aren’t, they are going to get exhausted with being the only one contributing the vulnerability threads of the relationship hammock, and visa versa.
A relationship co-created through mutual vulnerability is what straightens the intimacy.
A major reason vulnerability helps create the net underneath your relationship is it helps your partner love you. Being vulnerable and sharing what you want and need outside and inside the bedroom helps your partner love you by allowing them to actually know what to do. It gives them a chance at loving you best when you give them clear direction rather than leaving them to guess and playing a frustrating game of 20 questions and you giving vague, ambiguous answers. You are a unique and wonderful person and by sharing your unique heart directly and clearly you help your partner love you and your heart fully and entirely. If you don’t share all of you then your partner doesn’t have the chance to love all of you.
With that said, I want to emphasize that Men often don’t do well when we indirectly say our wants and needs. They need it clear and direct.
Indirect kills intimacy because is dilutes the vulnerability.
When you don’t tell your partner clearly and directly then your wants get diluted and don’t land, meaning your partner doesn’t have a chance in meeting your needs. Leaving you feeling sad, frustrated and resentful.
It needs to land for him to be able to take action on your wants and needs. And it lands when you are vulnerable by being open and direct.
“But I want him to know what I want without me having to tell him!”
Honey, he isn’t a mind reader no matter how in love you are.
“But if I spell it out for him then he’s going to do it because I asked him to!”
Exactly.
“But he should just want to!”
Well he does. But he needs to know first what you want so he can take action. Action cannot be taken from ambiguity.
“But if I tell him exactly what I want then he’ll feel obligated to do it.”
No. You’re telling him how best to love you through your vulnerability and he’ll be delighted to do it.
“Well shouldn’t he know what ‘I want to be cherished’ means?”
No. What does it mean to YOU. What can he do that has you feel cherished. Give him specifics.
“Well shouldn’t he get the hint?”
No. Stop making your wants and needs like a hidden, secret puzzle he needs to figure out.
Remove the obstacle course to your heart.
The more clear you are the more you’ll open the relationship to love. Which means you’ll be getting more love and more of what you want …
Which hits a whole deeper issue that has stops many women from being open and vulnerable and speaking up for what they want: not feeling worthy of having what you want or being loved in the way you want, or feeling more loved in general. Or fear that speaking your wants will push the love that’s available away rather than welcome more in. Fear of abandonment. Fear of rejection…
A woman who clearly and directly speaks her wants and needs knows she is worthy of receiving what she wants and needs. And that she is worthy of love. And she opens her heart wide to let the love pour in… which is massive vulnerability.
Speak your wants from your worthiness housed deep in your naked heart and watch the intimacy shift.
Vulnerability is Hard!
Let me tell you I get it that being vulnerable is hard. I’ve struggled with this myself as well. That’s what makes us human. If we trusted everything and everyone then we would be in danger. Ya … Ha! Sure... let me just be vulnerable and expose myself outside the cave so the saber tooth tiger can easily find me and eat me and I’ll die. No thank you! But not every situation and person is the equivalent to a sabertooth tiger situation. Learning who is safe and what makes them safe so that you can be entirely vulnerable is key. Creating this safety in your relationship with the safety net will allow your relationship to be that safe haven where your heart is fully and completely held.
I will share with you something my partner so wisely said once many years ago when I had a high level of protection around my heart. He said, “It’s like we are playing a relationship card game together and you keep holding your hand of cards close to your chest and so we can’t even play because you won’t put your cards down. Or you’ll put down one card but not the whole hand.” He was getting frustrated because I was only showing him bits and pieces of my heart. I was full on in my protective cave because my heart was entirely convinced that everyone was a saber-tooth tiger in disguise and my heart was only willing to peek its head out of the cave. He had been sharing his heart, putting it out of the cave, contributing to the hammock underneath us, but he couldn’t do it all on his own or put his heart out there without mine fully meeting his much longer. I had to show my cards. I had to meet him out of the cave.
Yikes! Come fully out of the cave?! I knew he was safe to show my heart. Well, my mind said I totally could. I’ve checked in multiple times and the evidence was fully there. I knew he was safe. No 11-inch teeth, just love and kisses. But my heart and the past hurts from others in life was like that anxious guy in the movie Inside Out running around inside my cave screaming.
I mean what if I stepped out of the cave and showed him my whole heart and he didn’t like it? Stomped on it? Shamed it? Hurt it? Or he would run back into his cave and so when I reach out in return I would be alone outside the cave and would feel no hammock there to catch me.
That was the risk. He could have done all those things. Whew, makes my heart jump right now just thinking of it.
But I did it. I walked my heart vulnerably out in the open to connect deeper and deeper with my husband. I was afraid but I laid down whole heart, my whole deck of cards, for him to see one step at a time. But that’s what vulnerability is. It’s feeling that fear and making the reach anyway. It was scary but liberating. And I continue to show him my heart, although not always or perfectly. I tell you this not only to model vulnerability by sharing a piece of me with you but to let you know that I know that scary feeling when being vulnerable. But I also know that if you keep responding to that fear that wants to block you from reaching out or you always hop back in the cave, you will not get to fully come out and fully be loved and seen.
Imagine a life where you allow yourself to be fully seen and fully loved.
Vulnerability Takes Practice
Vulnerability comes in stages and is 1) a continuous practice and 2) happens in small, manageable steps over time. You self-disclose gradually, in an appropriate measure (think of the goldilocks spot where it’s not to much or too little but jusssst enough to expand you) to how much trust has been mutually gained and earned. And you do so often to strengthen the vulnerability muscle. Just like pushups. If you want to get stronger you can’t do a push up, you build yourself up from 1 pushup on your knees to maybe 3 pushups, and eventually you can do 10 pushups off your knees. You build your strength through consistency. So when there is an opportunity for a big vulnerability share your mind can say “no problem, I got this”. Like if you have been consistent with pushups and someone asks you to get down and give you 20 you can say “psh, I got this” instead of “oh sh*t there’s no way!”. And if we don’t practice vulnerability with safe others then our hearts will be walled up forever and never get to run around in freedom and fully play in love or pleasure.
I don’t know about you but my heart wants freedom. It’s stuffy and lonely inside that cave.
Vulnerability starts with yourself and ends with yourself as a continuous energy exchange with your partner. But starting with yourself is the key place of intimacy as you increase your ability to be intimate with your partner. If you don’t know yourself then how can you share yourself? Think of it like those desk toys that when you pull back one side of the balls then the same energy is transferred to the other side. What are those called? Asking my engineer hubs now…Newton’s Cradle! (although also called Newton’s Balls which I kinda like better). The science and math behind these is way beyond what we need to go into but it models the same energy of vulnerability. As far back as you are able to go into your heart is equal to the amount you are able to share with others. You just can’t share what you don’t know inside your heart. And further, what you share with safe others then moves the energy back to you so you can safely explore more of yourself. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Intimacy with others starts with intimacy with yourself .
Ready to become more intimacy with yourself? The Self Love Sanctuary self-paced program is perfect for you!
Expand Your Vulnerability
Once you know more of yourself it’s practicing sharing your findings emotionally with your partner. When you truly understand who you are, your wants and needs, then you know how to speak up and express those desires to your partner. When sharing and they understand, then there is self-calming, which allows for even more internal exploration and sharing. Keep in mind you don’t need to know your heart fully and completely before sharing with your partner. We will never know ourselves in totality because we are always evolving and there’s limitless layers to be discovered and loved. You want to always be continuing the journey of being vulnerable and curious with yourself and free of judgmental thoughts.
When sharing with your partner a good place to start is to be curious about how you best feel loved by your partner. If you haven’t yet checked out the 5 Love Languages this is a good area to help you know you more and then you can practice vulnerability by sharing your language and what that would look like with your partner. It is also important to share vulnerably regarding our values in relationship when making your Unity Vision Statement for your relationship. You can also practice sharing more of your heart by reaching out in slightly less scary places. For example, sharing that you want sushi rather than that burger place for dinner is sharing your wants but not in an arena that is perhaps a level 10 scary share, like tht you want more butt smacks in the bedroom.
Start lower on the scale and build up.
With a foundation in emotional intimacy, you can then build your strength of vulnerability into physical and sexual intimacy with your partner using things likes Intentional Intimacy time and making sure there is no pressure on you or your partner. Especially for women, but also many men, it’s important to feel safe in emotional vulnerability before sharing your body vulnerably. Your body is an extension of your heart and to get there it is important to build a foundation of internal intimacy with yourself and an emotional bond with your partner and then add in the layers of physical and sexual intimacy.
Ready for more intimacy? Check out The Women’s Guide to Intentional Intimacy® self-paced program!
Hey ladies! Don’t forget to take the FREE Sexual Blocks Quiz by CLICKING HERE.
