I have something slightly embarrassing to admit. It’s probably not the most unusual mistake to make, and I truly didn’t understand what I was doing while I was doing it. For a while, I tried to create a world of emotional safety for myself. Having grown up in a world that seemed to be full of wounded, closed-hearted, cynical individuals - in a society that sometimes felt estranged from the grounding influences of empathy, understanding, kindness, and tenderness, I did what many others like myself have done - I sought refuge. For several years, I stepped further and further away from difficult relationships, angry or unkind individuals, and people or situations where it wasn’t safe to open up and expose all parts of myself and have them be received with grace.
During this time (I’m not entirely sure when this period began, and don’t think that it has come to its conclusion yet), I was focused on reconnecting with my heart, my feelings, and the most tender parts of myself which I’d buried and disowned over the years. As I excavated these parts of myself, I slowly purified my life of people, places, and things that weren't warmly accommodating to all the vulnerability I was unearthing. In retrospect, creating an environment of such safety and receptivity was very helpful (maybe even necessary), as it allowed me to develop new habits and patterns in my relationships - something that was incredibly awkward and difficult, and much more easily navigated with like-minded friends walking a similar path themselves.
Over time, however, the purification of my relationships led to a kind of desertification. I found myself with very few friends, and although there was a certain kind of safety that I’d found or created for myself, it seemed to have come at a great cost. For a while, I think this emptiness and safety in my life was healthy and healing, but at a certain point, it became clear that I was impoverished in my connection to humanity and the world. I was withering.
Beautiful things had happened in the safe space which I’d created, but to feel fully alive and to grow, it became necessary to step beyond that protective, removed relationship to the world and the complexity of others.
Different paths to vulnerability
I wrote a blog post several years ago called The Vulnerability Test: How To Tell If Someone Is Safe To Be Vulnerable With. In that post, I describe a simple method for determining if someone is healthy and appropriate to open up with in a very deep or raw way. Called the ‘share/check’ method, this process involves testing any individual’s level of emotional safety or receptivity by consciously sharing slightly honest or vulnerable things with them, and then checking in with ourselves and noticing how they have responded to our honesty. If they are receptive, supportive, or reciprocate our honesty, they are basically giving us a green light that it’s probably safe for us to share a bit more of ourselves with them. We can continue to do this practice of share/check as we get to know someone, as one way of noticing how safe (or unsafe) we feel around them, and to discern how much of ourselves it is healthy or appropriate to share with them.
That post is one of the most visited and popular posts on this blog, and I’ve received lots of emails from readers who appreciated it. I’m happy that it exists.
Today, however, I’m thinking about another path to vulnerability. The discernment process which I wrote about in that blog is just common sense and good discernment. I have nothing bad to say about that. However, in myself, I have seen a tendency to lean so far in the direction of discernment, seeking safety and understanding, and closing myself off from people or situations that don’t hold a certain level of those qualities, that something else has been needed to restore balance in my life.
I don’t know exactly when this began, but over the past couple of years, I’ve been learning how to access a kind of safety within myself - an internal framework of support, empathy, nurturance, and strength - that makes it possible to move through the complexity of this world with less need for protection or refuge. Instead of constantly needing reassurance or support from those around me for my raw inner child, I’ve been slowly learning how to access that support within myself.
If one path to vulnerability is to create and curate a very protected, safe, hospitable environment wherein I can be safe to be authentically myself, this other path involves developing the internal resources to walk out into the complexity of this world and be authentic in it without needing anything back.
I don’t think that one of these paths is better than the other, and I personally see how going down the former path has made the latter possible - pulling back from the world at times helps me get the balance to step back into it in a different way. The challenge and adventure of being myself around all the different people and situations I come across as I walk through the world, however, contains a very rich treasure. It pushes me to grow and to bring my unique presence into the world.
So, after a long time of pulling back from the world, expanding into who I am in the safe and gentle places, I’ve been loving learning the art of being myself when that seems to contradict what’s around me. It’s an enormous challenge and can be unbelievably rewarding. Sometimes it means being unseen, rejected, or misunderstood as I embody who or what I am. As a child, to have my vulnerability or truth unseen, judged or unliked was emotionally a near-mortal blow. As a man, I am learning to hold a bigger perspective, to feel the flinching and terror of my inner child when he feels hurt or affected by others, and give him a kind of love and reassurance that makes it possible to shake off such passing experiences.
I suppose I’m learning to find a balance - to surround myself with supportive, loving people, and also develop the strength to go beyond that and carry my truth into a world that may not always be able to reflect, support or understand it.
It’s a journey, and some days this is easier than others. Even just setting this intention - to hold myself bravely in the world, to accept that many of us are too hurt or preoccupied to be gracious with one another, and that this makes it all the more important to shine authentically, and sometimes (oftentimes) embarrass myself along the way - changes so much.
That’s all for today. As always, this post is only scratching the surface of a subject that is as big as life, but I did write a book that dives deep into these matters.