Vulnerability can be the source of incredible confidence, power, and attractiveness. And it can also be the cause of insecurity, neediness, and disempowerment. It all depends on how we relate to our vulnerability and what we do with it. In today’s post, I’d like to share a personal story about these two sides of vulnerability playing out in my life.
Getting Emotionally Needy
I don’t develop crushes on women often, so when it happens, it’s a monumental occasion. A couple of years ago, I became interested in a young woman who I would cross paths with regularly in my neighbourhood. I found something about her energy, her countenance and presence moving.
Gradually, warm smiles turned into hellos, which turned into very brief conversations, and then I worked up the courage to ask her if she would like to hang out sometime. She said yes, and I could barely contain the explosion of excitement inside of me.
We hung out a few times, and my feelings of attraction, fascination, and infatuation grew by leaps and bounds. Typically, I’m very transparent with my feelings when someone piques my interest romantically. Something about this situation, however, gave me pause.
A part of me wanted to completely gush and share how excited I was about this woman to her. Not with projections of what that could mean or naive expectations about our chemistry or compatibility - just to give a voice to some big (huge) feelings.
And yet whenever I began to move in that direction, something stopped me. I could feel her pull back whenever I shifted gears towards revealing my feelings. My sense was that if I were to share fully, openly, and vulnerably, it would send her running for the hills. Maybe this was because what I was feeling was not reciprocated. Perhaps it was just too much emotional directness too quickly for her. Whatever the underlying cause, I could feel the dynamic clearly, so I contained my feelings.
Holding all this excitement, tenderness, and vulnerability inside myself was extremely uncomfortable. An innocent part of me just wanted to share it, to see what she thought or felt, but I simply couldn’t. It felt like it would be crossing some invisible boundary. And so I contained it all, held it inside myself.
This turned out to be an extraordinary gift.
Because I couldn’t just share what I was feeling (as I usually would), I got to sit with all of it and notice some very sobering things. Maybe most sobering of all was that part of me felt incredibly needy. It felt a burning desire for this beautiful young woman’s validation. In fact, it felt this so strongly that its sense of strength and self-confidence was seemingly lost in the mix.
And, almost miraculously, because I couldn’t get this woman’s validation, there was an opportunity for me to do something new and different here. There was an opportunity to honestly see and feel an insecure part of me and provide it with the nurturance and security it so desperately wanted - from one of the best places it could get it: Me.
Empowered Vulnerability
Over the following weeks, I used my situation with my reluctant crush as an opportunity to feel my feelings, my sensitivity and vulnerability. I played around with showing my insecurities the compassion and love they sought from the outside.
Much of this involved simply listening to and feeling this part of myself, and showing it a perspective beyond its self-loathing, negativity, and passionate urge for external validation - showing it and showering it with love and understanding.
Eventually, the woman I had been getting to know more or less ghosted me - something that could have felt like a dagger to the heart, except for the fact that I was pretty sure I’d gotten something infinitely more valuable than a hot date out of this ill-fated romance. I got to take one more step into loving myself powerfully - one step further into holding my vulnerability in a powerful way.
The Push And Pull Of Vulnerability
Often in my life, sharing vulnerability has been seen by those around me as a very attractive thing. Almost like a magic dust that, when revealed, brings everything more alive. In this case, every time I went near my vulnerability, the person I was with reflexively cringed. The reasons for this were not fully clear to me, but I can’t help but wonder if part of it was because I wasn’t holding my feelings in an empowered way. I was coming with neediness, with a desire for validation, and that is both unhealthy and unattractive.
Getting the opportunity to witness my neediness and begin holding it for myself - nurturing these sore feelings within my heart - makes it possible to show up to the world in a much healthier way. It’s the difference between a vulnerability that is insecure and caving in on itself, and a vulnerability that can meet the world with a lighter, more powerful step.
I still occasionally cross paths with that young woman, by the way. And when that happens, I find myself much calmer these days. There is a feeling of appreciation for what my little experience with her showed me, as well as a respect for her process. And the part of me that had felt so desirous of her attention and validation, I think he knows he’s going to be just fine.
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