Vulnerability: A Sanctuary for Love, Growth and Belonging

As humans, we are naturally hardwired to prioritize the body over the mind. When we get a cut, we run to grab a Band-Aid just so it doesn’t become infected. When we experience the slightest headache, we immediately reach for the travel-size box of Advil in our purses. We all know how to maintain our physical well-being and indeed we all do it very well. But what about ensuring our psychological well-being? In fact, in our day-to-day lives, we endure far more psychological injuries than physical ones. Be it in the form of rejection, failure or even loneliness. Although a wide variety of techniques exist to treat these injuries, we don’t care to make use of them in our day-to-day lives.

Waiting all night for the text of a loved one, getting upset when a family member forgets an important day or occasion, or even waiting for your friends to approach you for a night out. We’ve all been there. But why are we never amongst those to take the first step forward? What holds us back from taking that leap of faith? The answer is a rather simple one: loneliness. It isn’t about being physically lonely. In fact, you can be surrounded by people all day and still be in the grips of real loneliness. Loneliness creates a profound scar that serves to manipulate our perceptions and scramble our way of thinking. It unnecessarily alienates us and builds walls that should not even exist. 

It is imperative to note that loneliness works in tandem with failure and rejection. Guy Winch, an American psychologist, shares a story of a day when he visited a day-care center, “where [he] saw three toddlers play with identical plastic toys. You had to slide the red button, and a cute doggie would pop out. One little girl tried pulling the purple button, then pushing it, and then she just sat back and looked at the box with her lower lip trembling. The little boy next to her watched this happen, then turned to his box and burst into tears without even touching it. Meanwhile, another little girl tried everything she could think of until she slid the red button, the cute doggie popped out, and she squealed with delight. So: three toddlers with identical plastic toys, but with very different reactions to failure. The first two toddlers were perfectly capable of sliding a red button. The only thing that prevented them from succeeding was that their mind tricked them into believing they could not.”  Just like this, we as adults fall into this trap that our minds have defaulted to whenever it experiences any signs of failure.

But it’s about time we eliminate the gap between physical health and psychological health. This gap can only be eliminated if we embrace our vulnerabilities. You read that right.

V-U-L-N-E-R-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y.

Loneliness, rejection, and failure all stem from the foundation of shame and fear, our constant battle to feel worthy; and that is in fact what vulnerability can be broadly defined as. What we fail to recognize is that our vulnerabilities are also sanctuaries for love, joy, and belonging.

By embracing our vulnerabilities, we instill within us a unique sense of courage to be imperfect, the courage to be ourselves. I am not saying that feeling vulnerable is a comfortable feeling, it’s just a pure necessity. The need to recognize that what makes us vulnerable also makes us beautiful, it makes us different and unique from one another, and lastly, it allows us to be compassionate towards ourselves first. Instead of our mind controlling us, it is crucial that we be the ones in control of our thoughts and reactions. That is the stepping stone we must all take to heal from our psychological wounds.

“Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light”.

Brené Brown

By: Fariha Farooq

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