What Vulnerability Says About Us
“Escher got it right, men step down and yet rise up.”
-Marvin Levine
We live in a culture that says showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness. However, if you make the effort to actually examine this assumption, you realize it is 100% backwards. It is a piece of propaganda that weak people came up with to make them appear strong.
Letting down your mask, being authentic, showing your true feelings…this is all scary as hell. As a culture, we say it’s not okay. In my experience, it takes tremendous courage to show one’s true emotions. Bottling emotions, sucking things up or stuffing them down and pretending like you don’t have feelings takes zero courage. It is the very opposite of courage.
All human beings have feelings. Even the most repressed or the most out of touch with their emotional world still have feelings somewhere deep within them. Losing touch with those feelings does not make you strong. Whether we want to admit it or not, our emotions are at the core of our beings. While at times there is certainly value in putting on a brave (or at least serene) face, most of the time the truly courageous act is just the opposite. In a culture that tells boys to “man up” and tells both men and women to “not act like a girl” (meaning don’t be emotional), what takes courage is going against that norm. What takes courage is owning our actions, being vulnerable, and showing our true selves.
Think how wildly different the world would be if we all realized true courage was not in pretending like you don’t have feelings but in showing that you do.
What if we did not view vulnerability as a problem to be avoided but as a goal to strive for? What if we saw the benefit in that tremendous risk? What if connecting with our sadness, hurt, loneliness, and whatever other feelings are buried within us did not mean something was wrong? What if it meant we were connected with our inner worlds and that was a good thing? A self-loving thing and self-accepting thing.
I can remember the first time I saw a tough guy cry. It was a 300-pound ex-con. Everything about this guy’s outward appearance said, “badass.” And nothing felt more courageous to me than watching him drop the pretense of that tough-guy persona. It blew my mind. Although, I had not been raised to believe that was okay, I started to understand then what real courage was. I have since visited cultures and countries in which the idea that toughness equates to emotionlessness is even more deeply ingrained. I have seen people in the U.S., Russia, South Africa, and the Middle East take a tremendous risk in showing their true feelings. There are many types of bravery, but seeing these brave men and women express their true feelings is one of the bravest acts I’ve ever witnessed. And the notion, that having or showing feelings is a sign of weakness, is a mistaken lie tragically popularized by people to scared to feel and share their own feelings.
Ask Yourself:
Given the culture we live in, does it take more courage to repress or feel one’s emotions?
Do I believe there are people who don’t have feelings?
What would the world be like if all people realized that true courage was not in pretending like you don’t have feelings, but in showing that you do?
Next Letter: Compassion