Vitality Through Vulnerability: Round 2

A few years ago, I wrote a blog called Vitality Through Vulnerability. Recently, I went back to reread it and if I’m being honest, it made me a little uncomfortable. Not because I no longer believe what I wrote.  In many ways, I still do. But because I realized something that felt both obvious and surprisingly vulnerable to acknowledge – I am not the same person who wrote it. I have grown. My mind has shifted. My perspective has deepened. Life has happened. I’ve experienced things I hadn’t experienced then. I’ve learned things I didn’t know then. I’ve come to understand myself, my relationships, and vulnerability in ways I just didn’t see or understand even that short time ago, and I think that’s worth acknowledging. We often talk about changing our minds or seeing things differently as though it means we were wrong before. As though changing our perspective somehow invalidates what we once believed. But I’m beginning to see this differently.

Maybe growth isn’t about looking back at the person we were and deciding they didn’t know what they were talking about. Maybe it’s about being able to look back at ourselves with compassion and say, “I understand why I saw it that way then, AND I understand it differently now” or, “I understand what I was thinking back then, AND with the new information I have learnt and collected on my journey and new experiences, I see it differently now”. Both things can be true at the same time. It doesn’t have to mean the person I was was wrong. I don’t need to label not knowing then what I know now as stupid or bad. 

It just means I have grown. So here is my second attempt at a previously published blog of mine, and I dedicate this to all you readers, who like me, have a wondering mind, a thirst for knowledge, and the understanding that we aren’t meant to stay stagnant. We are meant to question, to learn, to experience, to change, and to continue becoming……. Revisiting vulnerability through a deeper, more curious lens

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Lisa Wilder, and I have what I call a “wondering mind”.

Although it can sometimes take me off on all sorts of tangents, it should not be confused with a “wandering mind”. There is a big difference.

For me, a wondering mind means that there is very little I approach without curiosity. I am curious about people. About relationships. About life. About why we do the things we do. About the experiences that shape us and the stories we tell ourselves because of them. I rarely see things as completely black and white. I tend to believe that most things carry shades of both good and bad, helpful and unhelpful, depending on the person, the situation, and the perspective we bring to it. And perhaps most importantly, I have come to believe that there isn’t always only one “right” answer.

Something shifts when instead of asking ourselves, “What is right?”, we ask, “What is right for me?”

I think I understand this question much more deeply now than I did when I first wrote about it. We live in a world that is very quick to tell us how we should think, what we should believe, how we should live, what success should look like, what relationships should look like, and even how we should feel. We absorb these messages from our families, our friends, our communities, social media, and society at large. Some are helpful and some quite frankly are not. And sometimes, without even realizing it, we begin living according to a collection of “shoulds” that we never actually stopped to question.

You should be stronger.

You should be over it by now.

You shouldn’t be so emotional.

You should make everyone happy.

You should keep the peace at all costs.

You shouldn’t make waves.

You should know what you want.

You shouldn’t wear that.

You should be more successful.

You should do this differently.

You should be different.

But what if some of those “shoulds” aren’t actually yours? What if part of becoming more fully ourselves is having the courage to stop, wonder and ask, “Is this actually what I believe?”, “Is this actually what I want?”, “Is this actually who I am?”, and perhaps even, “What if I am allowed to change my mind?”

Curiosity vs criticism

I think this is one of the places where my thinking has changed the most. I used to think of curiosity primarily as a way of understanding the world around me. I now see it as an incredibly powerful way of understanding myself.  We are often much quicker to criticize ourselves rather than to become curious about ourselves.

Criticism looks like:

Why am I like this?

What’s wrong with me?

Why can’t I just get over this?

Why do I always do this?

But what happens when we change the question to something like:

I wonder why this feels so difficult for me?

I wonder where I learned to respond this way?

I wonder what I am feeling underneath this?

I wonder what this part of me is trying to protect?

I wonder whether this belief about myself is actually true?

There is something very different about approaching ourselves with curiosity rather than criticism. Curiosity creates space. It allows us to pause before judging ourselves and become interested in our own story. It allows us to learn. And sometimes, when we become curious about ourselves, we begin to see that some of the things we criticize ourselves for may have once served a purpose.

Maybe we learnt to keep the peace (at our own cost) because conflict didn’t feel safe. Maybe we learnt to hide parts of ourselves because being different felt like it threatened our sense of belonging. Maybe we learnt to stay quiet because speaking up came with consequences that felt too big to manage. Maybe we developed a very strong shell because, at some point, we needed one. But that doesn’t mean these patterns have to remain forever.

When we get curious to understand where the pattern came from and the purpose it once served, we can begin to decide whether it still fits who we are and what we need in the here and now.

The shell that once protected us I’ve always loved the image of a turtle retreating into its shell as a metaphor. When something feels threatening, the turtle pulls back. It protects the vulnerable parts of itself and waits until it feels safe enough to emerge again. We can be a little like that too.

When we feel criticized, rejected, misunderstood, embarrassed, or exposed, we may retreat. We shut down. We become quiet. We stop sharing. We tell ourselves we don’t care. We put the walls back up. And honestly, sometimes that is exactly what we need to do. Our protective responses are not necessarily bad. Many of them develop for a reason. They helped us navigate something we didn’t yet have the capacity, resources, or safety to handle differently. The difficulty comes when the protection that once helped us begins to hinder or limit us. When the shell becomes the only place we feel safe. When protecting ourselves from rejection also protects us from connection. When avoiding difficult emotions also keeps us from understanding ourselves and keeps us stuck in the past. When never speaking our truth keeps us from ever being fully known. Or when keeping our authentic selves hidden also keeps us from the freedom of being who we truly are.

This is where vulnerability enters the conversation.

What I understand about vulnerability now

Many of us have heard of Brene Brown. If you haven’t, I highly recommend looking her up. One of my favourite TED Talks is her talk on vulnerability. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability When I first wrote my original Vitality Through Vulnerability piece, I wrote about vulnerability as a pathway to connection authenticity, and growth. And although I still believe all of that, I understand vulnerability differently now.

I used to think primarily about vulnerability as allowing other people to see us; to let the outside see some of what is happening on the inside. Now I think vulnerability begins much earlier than that. It begins with being honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge what is truly happening inside - I’m hurt. I’m angry. I’m scared. I’m grieving. I’m overwhelmed. I need help. I don’t actually want this. This doesn’t feel right for me anymore. I’ve changed my mind.

Sometimes the most vulnerable thing we can do is stop pretending that we’re okay. And then, sometimes, vulnerability means allowing someone else to see that truth too, and that can be incredibly scary, because once we allow ourselves to be seen, we no longer have complete control over what happens next. We can share something deeply personal and be met with compassion, but we can also be misunderstood, dismissed, judged, laughed at, told we’re overreacting, or simply met by someone who doesn’t have the capacity to hold what we’ve shared. And when that happens, it can be very tempting to pull back into our shells and think, “See? This is why I don’t tell people anything. This is why I keep things to myself. I should never have said anything”. But here’s the thing, their response does not necessarily mean your vulnerability was wrong. It may simply mean that they weren’t the right audience; they weren’t a safe space for that particular part of you.

Vulnerability doesn’t mean having no boundaries

This is something else I understand differently now. Living vulnerably does not mean telling everyone everything. Authenticity does not mean having no boundaries. We can be open and discerning at the same time. When we approach vulnerability with consciousness and awareness, we can ask ourselves:

Who has earned the right to see the more vulnerable parts of me?

Who can disagree with me without belittling my ideas and without making me feel small?

Who listens without immediately trying to fix me?

Who can hold something I’ve shared without using it against me later?

Who allows me to be different without making me wrong?

Vulnerability is not about throwing every door wide open. Sometimes it is about choosing which doors to open, and who we invite through them, and I think there is tremendous wisdom in that distinction.

Growth is never linear

Living vulnerably is easier said than done.

It feels wonderful when we are validated and people cheer us on. It feels much harder when we encounter the people who are quick to shoot down our ideas, laugh at us, tell us we’re crazy, or insist that our way of seeing things is wrong. And when that happens, we may retreat. That is human.

Growth is not linear. We will move forward and then sometimes move backward. We will find our voice and sometimes lose it again. We will set a boundary and then feel guilty about it. We will speak honestly and then wonder if we said too much. None of that means we have failed – it means we are human.

Perhaps growth isn’t about never returning to old patterns. Perhaps it is about noticing sooner when we have returned to them and becoming curious about what happened. Maybe the goal isn’t to get rid of our shells altogether. Maybe it is to know that we have one, understand why we developed it, and become increasingly able to decide if it is safe enough to come out.

I am still becoming, and I plan to always be

In the years since I wrote my original piece, I’ve come to understand that vulnerability isn’t about becoming fearless. It isn’t about having all the answers. It isn’t even about finally figuring out exactly who we are – I believe we are meant to be continual work in progress.

Perhaps vulnerability is being willing to stay open to ourselves, to others, and to the possibility that there will always be more for us to discover. Maybe authenticity isn’t something we achieve once and then check off our list. Maybe it is something we practice. We question the beliefs we’ve carried. We understand the patterns we’ve developed. We make room for emotions we’ve pushed away. We reconsider the “shoulds” that have shaped us. We honor that we are not meant to stay stagnant. We allow ourselves to change. And sometimes, we look back at an earlier version of ourselves and realize that we have grown beyond what we once understood. I think that’s what happened when I reread my original Vitality Through Vulnerability blog.  I could see the person I was in those words. I could see what I understood then. I could also see what I didn’t yet understand or didn’t yet have the words for. And instead of wanting to erase those words or apologize for the simplicity of my blog, I find myself wanting to thank that version of me. She was wondering too. She simply had different questions. So, I wonder…..

Maybe this is what I love most about having a wondering mind.

It doesn’t require me to have all the answers. It simply invites me to stay curious. To pause before I judge. To question what I’ve always believed. To look a little more closely at the things I don’t understand. To wonder what might be underneath the emotion, the reaction, the pattern, or the story I’ve been telling myself.

And maybe that’s an invitation we can all give ourselves.

Instead of “What’s wrong with me?”, what if we asked, “I wonder?”.

I wonder why this matters so much to me?

I wonder where I learned this?

I wonder what I’m feeling?

I wonder what I need?

I wonder what might be possible if I stopped trying so hard to be the person I think I’m supposed to be?

I wonder what parts of myself I’ve learnt to hide?

I wonder which parts of myself I’ve outgrown?

I wonder what might happen if I gave myself the permission to change?

And perhaps most importantly…..I wonder who I am still becoming?

Maybe we don’t need to have all the answers. Maybe sometimes, the most important thing we can do is stay curious enough to ask the questions. Because perhaps the real gift of a wondering mind isn’t that it helps us find all the answers. Perhaps it reminds us that we are allowed to keep discovering.

I wonder….

Wishing you all a wonder-filled kind of day.

~Lisa