I discovered Brené Brown’s TED talk on the power of vulnerability around 12 years ago, at a crossroads, when I needed to understand how to go on in a period of my life intense and turmoil. I understood the idea of vulnerability as emotional exposure, a mark of courage and more often than not something rather painful… .
Digging deeper into Dr. Brown’s work, I also gratefully received one precious nugget of wisdom and advice: we should not use vulnerability to short circuit connection. Being vulnerable is a superpower only when used wisely. Oversharing and being vulnerable with the wrong crowd can hurt you more than help you.
In my career of now almost three decades, there is one lesson I seem to refuse to learn, and therefore a mistake I continue to make over and over again. In an almost obsessive attempt to make sure that I consider everyone worthy and that I always remember that everyone we meet is fighting a hard battle, I find myself, as Romanians say, throwing many diamonds of my vulnerability in the mouths of pigs who will use my words and open heart to hurt me.
Many have been the times when a heart-to-heart conversation with a colleague about the fact that I have difficulties being my best self sometimes, that I have mental challenges that I overcome every day, that sometimes I struggle to be present, and asking for their support has come to bite me hard in the end. People I thought would realize the special space I had welcomed them in and appreciate the act for what it was, used my words, my vulnerability and my struggles as weapons to attack me when something in my behavior did not suit their needs.
It is the same Dr. Brown who always asks a question that equally bothers and intrigues me: what is the lesson that the universe keeps putting in front of you and that you have to learn and learn over and over again? For me this lesson clearly has been the fact that relationships are not created equal. That looking at people through the lens of humanity does not equal the need of sharing our hearts with every person one of them.
It may sound childish, or completely immature, that I many times ignore the feeling in my gut telling me I should maybe, this one time, keep my diamonds to myself. As much as I would like to believe that I will change in this lifetime, I think I’m safer to assume that the lack of connection scares me more and that I will always do my best to connect from the most authentic part of myself, even at this steep price.
Connect 