Vulnerability is commonly praised as “the key to connection”.

Yet, after hosting and participating in 100s of events with the purpose of deeper connection and kindling friendships, my conclusion is it’s way more nuanced than that.

Yes, this part is true:

When people are vulnerable with each other:

• Sharing the depths of your heart unadulterated
• Listening receptively, without trying to fix or change a thing
• Neither censoring, nor trying to be “as vulnerable as possible”

…then it is indeed likely that those people will feel deeply connected.

But what’s also true, and often skipped over because of bias:

Vulnerability is inherently dangerous.

The dictionary definition of vulnerability is “exposuref to the possibility of emotional or physical harm”. The threat of harm is the difference between vulnerability and exhibitionism.

No danger means no vulnerability. This means vulnerability, while being a cool connection buzzword, is not unequivocally a good thing.

The Link Between Vulnerability and Connection

Relationship experts often say that vulnerability is what creates connection. But it’s not that simple.

Vulnerability invites disconnection as much as it invites connection.

If you’re making yourself vulnerable to someone, that means you’re risking they’ll respond in a way that reveals disconnect. And it’s actually this very potential for disconnection that gives it is power for promoting deeper connections.

This can sound paradoxical, but here’s how it works:

Sometimes, we censor importants parts of ourselves in an effort to maintain a certain relationship.

Just like vulnerability isn’t unequivocally a good thing, self-censorship isn’t unequivocally a bad thing. Your boss doesn’t always have to hear how great the orgy was last Saturday. Even if that’s the reason you’re slacking off at work today.

However, there are times when this self-censorship is a form of self-abandonment: When we hide important parts of us (desires, needs, boundaries, feelings, opinions) because we so desperately crave to stay in connection with the other that we’re willing to sacrifice the connection with ourselves for it.

This often backfires in all directions.

Because the issue with desperately seeking connection is that by clinging to each opportunity for it, we don’t allow space for disconnection. And if disconnection isn’t seen as a possibility, connection isn’t one either.

Because you can’t discover what inherently connects you without being able to check if it does or doesn’t.

This is why vulnerability is such a powerful trait for connection:

When we make ourselves vulnerable, we make a choice to welcome the possibility of disconnection. And with that comes the possibility for a connection that feels more real. We have shared parts with each other which we thought might drive us apart, but they brought us together. We have exposed ourselves to rejection and were met with love instead.

Beautiful experience.

And it feels so beautiful because there was a very real chance of having the opposite experience.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re in a romantic relationship and you’re experiencing frequent conflict in which you both act viciously towards each other..

You watch a video on YouTube saying that emotional intimacy is restored when we’re vulnerable with each other. So you decide to show up more vulnerably.

Here are some of the possible outcomes when doing this in the next conflict:

A) You show up vulnerable. Your partner shows up vicious. They use our vulnerability to know exactly what to say that’ll heart you more deeply. You feel pain, their ego gloats.

B) The same as A. But instead of feeling the pain, you get triggered and become extra vicious. The conflict escalates even further.

C) You show up vulnerable. Your partner’s heart softens. They show up vulnerable too. The resulting conversation is one of crying, hugging, tending to each other’s wounds and eventually finding the bliss of love that had been covered up by all the conflict.

D) You show up vulnerable. This is so far out of your partner’s frame of reference that they have no clue how to respond. They freeze, cringe or get confused. The conflict de-escalates but distance increases.

This is the reality of it. It’s not that vulnerability will heal your conflict and connect you both. It’s that this is one out of 4 (or more) possible outcomes. The 3 other outcomes are forms of disconnection. And yet, it’s still the case that vulnerability (if you can handle it) is still the most productive choice. Because:

• If outcome A happens, it’s an important sign for you that it might be time to leave this dynamic. The dynamic was there, even if you didn’t do the vulnerable thing. But now you know.
• Ooutcome B is basically what was happening already. No change.
• Outcome C is amazing
• Outcome D can be a great step towards deeper intimacy eventually, as long as you don’t impose your own commitment to vulnerability on the other person and are willing to go at their pace and capacity.

Each of these outcomes is a positive one for you in the long-run (in a practical sense, not an emotional sense, we’ll get to that).

So wait, did I just share all this nuance with you to conclude that in the end, vulnerability is the right choice in all circumstances anyway?

Not quite. Let’s continue our exploration:

Is Vulnerability a Strength or a Weakness?

Some people say “vulnerability is weakness”.

Some people say “vulnerability is strength”.

Which group is right?

Neither. Vulnerability is vulnerability. Strength is strength. Weakness is weakness.

(In fact, I believe that conflating different concepts this way is a major source of suffering in humans, and I haven’t seen many people investigate this. There’s a chapter in my book, for example, which explains the suffering that results from conflating “blame” and “responsibility”. But I digress.)

Both the “vulnerability is weakness” and “vulnerability is strength” people are missing a part of the bigger picture (which they hold for each other).

I think the conflation of vulnerability with weakness arises from the fact that it does expose our weak & tender spots (if not, it’s not vulnerability, because as we’ve seen, vulnerability by definition implies potential harm).

This can make it seem like an act of weakness (or to some, stupidity). But openly exposing a weak spot does require strength and courage. It requires a trust that we’ll be okay. Even if we reveal it. That we can handle those 4 (or more) potential outcomes). Even if the one that happens is the one we hope doesn’t.

So it’s not that vulnerability is strength (or weakness), but that making oneself vulnerable is often an act of strength. Someone who feels weak will rarely do it unless they’re in some sort of trauma response that makes them (e.g. fawning).

So when we feel insecure and are posturing to cover it up, the assessment that vulnerability could make us feel even weaker is correct. It would dissolve the posture and put us in touch with the parts of ourselves we’re hoping won’t get hurt.

And when we feel confident, we correctly assess that leaning into sharing some of the things we’re less confident about, has the potential of making our confidence grow stronger.

But what exactly do “weakness” or “strength” refer to in this case? Because with conversational vulnerability, we’re not talking about the threat of bodily harm. We’re talking about the threat of psychological and emotional “harm”.

Vulnerability and the Nervous System

What we mean with “strong” or “weak” in the context of this exploration is the nervous system’s capacity for handling our own emotional response to each possible outcome of making ourselves vulnerable.

Remember when we went over the possible outcomes of vulnerability brought into a romantic conflict?

Each of these outcomes would be good from a pragmatic perspective. But that doesn’t mean vulnerability is therefore the optimal choice in such situations.

Because when you are in a state where you don’t have the capacity to process the risk inherent to vulnerabile, being vulnerability rarely creates connection.

On the contrary, it can cause you to disconnect from yourself. And when you’re disconnected from yourself, you’re not with the other either (since you’re not there).

And if one of the possible outcomes would completely “crush you” for months to come, that’s probably not going to encourage you to be more courageous with it over time.

On one hand, there is a direct correlation between the degree of vulnerability and the intensity of the connection we might feel when the vulnerability is well-received. High-risk, high-reward.

On the other, this really is the sort of thing you better cultivate through gradual exposure therapy:

Start by making yourself 5% more vulnerable than you do now. Get some reference experiences by going through situations where it went “wrong” and yet you still felt “okay”. Then increase it to 10%, etc.

You wouldn’t walk in a gym for the first time and try to squat Homer Simpson’s bodyweight.

So it stands to reason you might not want to walk into a conversation and try to make yourself as vulnerable as… (sorry, I really thought I had a great analogy here but it seems I didn’t).

The point is, your nervous system’s capacity to tolerate emotional impact is trained through progressive overload. But instead of the load being a barbell with weights, the load is the emotional charge on your body.

One thing that’s important to note here is that the potential emotional impact is different for each situation depending on your relationship to it.

We gave the example of the romantic conflict.

For many people, if we were talking about vulnerability with a stranger, the emotional impact of those outcomes would be way lower. A stranger reacting with disapproval means less to them than their lover reacting with disapproval. For others, it’s the reverse.

Now what if we’re on a date with that stranger?

It might be same. But it might also be that we are projecting our parents onto them (while, with a long-term romantic partner, some of the projection can have faded). Making the emotional impact more intense.

Now how about a group?

If you’re the only one in a group showing vulnerable, you might get ostracized and ridiculed. For most people this is an extreme emotion, because historically, being ostracized from the tribe meant not being able to survive (in other words, dying).

But the reward is also greater: By leading with vulnerability, you might change the culture of the group in a way that everyone’s been yearning for.

The key is to know yourself. Which situations trigger you most? How are you feeling today?

And use that information to assess how much vulnerabilit yyou can handle.

The more we build the capacity to be vulnerable, the more we build the capacity to hold space for others to be vulnerable with us. Which in turn lowers the risk for them to lean into higher degrees of vulnerability (it’s like having a spotter in the gym).

Over time, this makes openly sharing with each other a less vulnerable act for all of us.

(So in that sense, practicing the capacity for vulnerability is something that inherently promotes connection.)

“When people allow you to know about their pain and talk about it, take your shoes off. It’s a holy place. Be humble, be kind when someone shows you vulnerability.” – Amani Albair

Manipulative Vulnerability

There are many ways in which one can use the appearance of vulnerability without its essence.

I’m due to write a blog post about appearance versus essence, which is an important topic but a tough one to explain.

To keep this short, let’s go with examples:

Praising someone is a behavior. The appearance of praise is always the same. You tell someone what you think is great about them.

But the essence of praise can change depending on the intention the praise is given with:

• To uplift the other person (essence: encouragement)
• To love them (essence: love)
• To inspire them to praise you back (essence: narcissism)
• To create some sort of social capital in case you want to ask for a favor down the line (essence: machiavellinism)
• To demonstrate to others that praise is good and can be done (essence: demonstration)

What a thing “is”, is determined by its essence (or “is-sense”, which isn’t real etymology, I just made it up) not its appearance. Appearance can be deceiving. Essence just is.

In the examples given above you could say that the first 2 are benevolent, the next 2 are parasitic and the last one depends on context and consent. 5 very different essences for 1 same appearance.

In essence, you wouldn’t say “they praised me” if what they did was manipulate you.

Now, if we apply that to vulnerability, what are some ways the appearance of it can be hijacked by hidden essences which aren’t about connection?

• As a way to take up space in a conversation (if you say something really vulnerable, it would be rude to ignore that and move on to someone else)
• As a way to trauma-dump or use a group/partner for therapy without having their buy-in for that context
• As a way to manipulate them into loving you because you’ve read on the internet that vulnerability creates connection
• As a way to re-affirm a victim role and/or trigger a savior role in the other person
• As a form of masochism or exhibitionism (or a way to shock people and tirgger them)
• As a way to invalidate others / feel superior (“oh, you think your trauma sucked? here’s mine!”)

The list is endless.

We’re not always aware of our own deepest intentions.

But it’s important to note that when our intention is one of the above (a different essence given the appearance of vulnerability), there is a much higher chance that we trigger negative outcomes with our vulnerability.

Because people can feel essence. We’re just not always aware of it.

Of course the idea of “check your essence to prevent bad outcomes” is already the opposite of the essence of vulnerability (it’s an attempt to control), but I’m still naming it as another layer of nuance:

Why are we making ourselves vulnerable? What’s the essence of this choice for me right now?

We might not always know. But the answer to that question often holds some wisdom on whether to proceed with it or not.

The connection Between Vulnerability, Truth, Life and Love

Being vulnerable is acknowledging a fact that humans spend a lot of effort trying to deny:

We can’t control or predict what will happen the next moment.

Yes, there are probabilities. But reality is complex.

There’s a vulnerability intrinsic to being alive.

Our social fears are rooted in this. Because we need each other to survive.

And building the capacity for vulnerability is pretty much the same as building the capacity to feel intense feelings.

Feeling what it’s like to be alive, and therefore, at risk of dying.

Emotions are felt in the body.

When we feel an emotion is “overwhelming” or “too much” for us, what we’re really saying is the feeling is too intense. And because it’s too intense, we find a way to feel less of it.

(Which you could see as “armoring”, making us less vulnerable to pain. Because emotional intensity is pain. With all emotions. Ever laughed so hard it hurts? Exactly)

This means that building the capacity to be vulnerable is building the capacity to feel what’s happening in our body.

The more we feel what’s happening in our body, the more we feel its aliveness.

The beating of our pulse, the rhythm of our breath, the sensations on our skin (and within); this is where emotions are felt.

Of course, the more we feel the body’s aliveness, the more we become aware just how delicate it is, and how many things can make it die.

To be alive is to be vulnerable.

What changes is our degree of awareness of this truth.

So to be vulnerable, in a sense, is to align ourselves with truth, with life and with reality.

To embrace it.

And to embrace something wholeheartedly, with no other intention than to do so, is an act of love.

P.S. Want to practice vulnerability in a way that helps you connect with others, without losing connection to yourself?

Next Monday, I’m hosting a free workshop on Zoom where we explore this through exercises and Authentic Relating games.

You can reserve your spot here.