00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 342, "What Does Vulnerability Look Like?" Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams, we choose to create it. 

00:23 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Thank you for joining me today. I am super glad to have you here with me and talking about these topics that are just so important if we want to have really connected, intimate relationships. It's tough work, I will say it again and again. It's Work with a capital W and it is challenging and it is so worth it. The life that I have been able to create with these tools and the life that I've been able to help so many of my clients obtain through these tools just astounds me and I'm so proud of the work that I do and I'm just so, so glad to have you here. Thank you for joining and thank you for sharing. 

01:07 

Let's see, this week we have on Tuesday, tomorrow, if you're listening to this on the day that it comes out, Talk with Tanya. So if you are interested in that, you can go to my website tanyahale.com. You can click on the "group coaching" tab and there will be a place where you can click on "Talk with Tanya" and you will get an email that gives you the link and you can just show up. And this is just an open forum. It's a place for you to just come on, you can talk to me about ideas you have, you can ask me about coaching, you can possibly even get coaching if you're interested in doing that and there's time and space. You can ask me questions about my divorce, about my dating, anything's pretty much free game. So it's just an exciting time to have an opportunity to touch base with me and ask me questions on whatever you want to talk about. So that is tomorrow. So go to tanyahale.com and get signed up for that if that is something that intrigues you and interests you. 

02:08 

And classes just started this last week, so if you miss those or they did not align with your schedule, keep your eyes open. I will be doing some more in March. And if you have topics that you would like to have covered, get on my website as well. There's a "contact me" button on there, and send me a note and let me know what you would love to have some classes on. I can absolutely custom tailor a class for a group of people if you have a group of people who would like something, or if if I have several people asking for a similar class that is the one that I will offer. 

02:46 

So okay, shall we jump in? I think we should. We're talking today about what does vulnerability look like? So last week we talked about being all-in in our relationships and we talked about how a huge piece of being able to be all-in is being vulnerable. So this week I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into what vulnerability looks like and give you some examples of how it can be manifest in your relationships. 

03:12 

So I know I've told this story about how when I first encountered Brene Brown after my divorce I was blown away by the concept of vulnerability in marriage. I didn't even really know that that was a thing. I had lived so much by the belief that I had to be perfect to be loved in my previous marriage, that showing my weaknesses or failings would have seemed like relationship suicide. It didn't feel as though it would be safe and I thought that I would not be loved if I didn't seem perfect. And a fascinating piece is that a hundred percent my previous husband was aware of my weaknesses and faults even if I didn't talk. I was being pretty darn close to perfect but in this state of feeling like I had to be perfect to be loved I was unwilling, and I'd even say I was unable, to show up vulnerable. And because of that we never even came close to achieving any semblance of emotional intimacy. 

04:22 

So let's talk about vulnerability a little bit more in depth so that we can understand more clearly what it is and why it would be necessary. So vulnerability is defined as "being open to attack or damage," and synonyms include defenseless, exposed, helpless, undefended, unguarded. Now none of that sounds appealing at all. In fact our primitive brain, as we read those, is probably going "whoa whoa whoa whoa, not going there," right? In an article written by Lisa Fritcher about emotional vulnerability she defines it as, "a state of emotional exposure that comes with a degree of uncertainty. Learning how to be vulnerable involves a willingness to accept the emotional risk that comes from being open and willing to love and be loved." 

05:15 

Okay, so many people are afraid of vulnerability in the context of relationships, and so we hold back. We stay in a protective stance. We keep those walls with the bricks high, and it keeps us from developing the depth of intimacy that we desire, and I might say that most of us even crave. But once we start to really understand vulnerability and its impact on our ability to connect, we can realize that it is so worth the effort and the risk to show our soft underbelly, to expose ourselves to rejection, and possibly even ridicule. A relationship without vulnerability will stay superficial, meaning it might make us fairly decent roommates. We might be able to have nice conversations, but we will not delve into topics that really help us understand and appreciate one another. We will never see the parts of a person that create feelings of compassion and admiration and we will never be able to stand in awe of the other person's strength because we will never see it at a deeper level. 

06:22 

And vice versa, the other person can never move into this space either if we are not choosing to be vulnerable. It's vulnerability that helps us foster deep and meaningful relationships. It's vulnerability that creates that deep connection that binds our hearts together. And it's in being vulnerable that we create the trust necessary to create deep connection. 

06:49 

But vulnerability is not always easy and it is absolutely not always intuitive. Often our primitive brain pushes hard against vulnerability, and that makes sense. When we look at the caveman day primitive brain, vulnerability literally was a life or death situation. But in our relationships today, we are rarely in danger of losing our life over vulnerability. But our primitive brain can react as though we would die. It can feel that scary and our ability to be vulnerable is a measure of our courage and strength, not our weakness. Oftentimes we think of vulnerability as being weak, but it actually shows how much courage and strength we have. And without it we will not be able to be seen and heard and understood, which is a basic tenet for a deep connected relationship. 

07:47 

So though at first glance vulnerability can be seen as a weakness, when viewed in the realm of relationships vulnerability is actually a sign of strength and can be a means for getting stronger individually. When we step into invulnerability, we develop greater self-confidence, greater strength, and a belief in our ability to do tough things. This increases our resilience in challenging situations and our confidence in taking on even tougher challenges. So it builds our sense of self. 

08:23 

Vulnerability also helps us to create stronger and deeper relationships. When we open up and share difficulties and challenges with someone, when we allow others to see our weaknesses and our failures, it fosters unity because others see that we struggle just like they do, that we have more in common than we might have previously thought. One of my great friendships from when I taught school kind of exemplifies this. So my friend Bobby and I had been at the same school for three to four years but had not really worked together. And so there was no vulnerability in our relationship. We had never had a conversation that really gave us that opportunity. When we were put in the same department, we started working together weekly. And after a few weeks, one of us shared something a bit vulnerable and then the other one did. And we found out that it was a safe place to share. So we ended up sharing more and more and more. And by the end of several years of working together, we were deep friends with a relationship built on vulnerability and trust. We talked about so many vulnerable things. 

09:32 

And every relationship works this way. It starts with one person choosing to show some vulnerability, taking the risk of being rejected or ridiculed, just not knowing how the other person will respond. And sometimes our marriages are at a place where neither have shown vulnerability for years. And choosing to step into vulnerability again can be super scary and feel really risky. Even with this person to whom we've been married for decades. But it's the only way to create a better and a stronger relationship. Vulnerability is also a really great way to improve our self-acceptance. When I can courage up, when I can come to accept my weaknesses and failures enough to share them with another person, I move into a deeper level of self love as well. Vulnerability strengthens my sense of self because I am showing up aligned with the person I really want to be.  And that feels amazing. So vulnerability is the key to deeply connected, emotionally intimate relationships. Good to know. 

10:42 

Now, how do we do it? What does it look like? I'm gonna give you several ideas. I think there's seven, okay? 

10:49 

So first of all, we have to be willing to share our emotions. This is a space of honesty that can be really difficult for some of us as well as it can be difficult sometimes to dig into emotions beyond anger, frustration, happy or sad. But when we can dig a little bit deeper beyond those like "easy" to identify emotions to things like feeling insignificant, dismissed, overlooked, content, seen or fulfilled, we are engaging in a deeper level of intimacy. Sharing risky emotions or sharing emotions can feel risky because we often don't know how the other person will respond. And yet when we know that we will be proud of ourselves for sharing, even if the other person rejects or ridicules us, we are acting in alignment with who we really want to be and building our courage and our strength and our sense of self. 

11:49 

Okay. So in the show notes, if you want to check, I'm going to put a link for what is called a relationship circle or a, um, Emotion, okay, I'm drawing a blank right now. Anyway, go to the notes and look at that. There are several different options out here, or an emotion wheel is what it's called! There's a lot of different iterations of this. I'll just find one that I really like and put it in the notes so that you can see it. And it's a way of digging deeper beyond feelings like "I'm angry," or "I'm happy," or "I'm sad," and digging more into deeper emotions. So I think that will be really helpful if you want to push yourself in this arena a little bit. 

12:30 

Second, be willing to talk about your mistakes and flaws. This one was particularly difficult for me in my previous marriage because I truly thought, as I said before, that I had to be perfect to be loved. Not having flaws or weaknesses seemed like the way for me to get my husband to love me. But come to find out, that's not really how it works. We are naturally drawn to people when they can see and admit their flaws and their mistakes. We feel like we're on the same team, that we understand one another, that we're equals. When people come across as too perfect, they can seem untouchable, maybe even self-righteous, which I'm sure, which I think was a big one for how I showed up previously, and probably still very often, but we naturally tend to keep our distance from people like that. We connect with other people in the mess. The mess is where the miracles happen. When in our relationships we go through trials together, it can have the effect of bringing us closer together. 

13:38 

The challenge here is that, honestly, it's not always safe to share, meaning the other person might not treat our admissions of weakness with kindness. And that's good data that lets us know it may not be safe to do this in the future. And I want you to consider, though, that if you and your spouse have been emotionally protective for a lot of years and haven't had discussions about weaknesses and flaws, it might be worth giving it a shot. It might be worth the trial run. And one of you has to be courageous enough to go first to test the waters. And, my friends, since you're doing the work, it might as well be you. You know how to have your back if they don't respond respectfully. 

14:22 

But what if they do receive it? What if it knocks a few bricks out of their protective wall? We just never know until we try. Choosing to be all in means we give it a go and we see what happens. They might respond in a negative way. Okay, good data. Give yourself time to catch your breath and then put another nugget out there at another time and see if you get the same response. And watch for the consistent patterns in how they respond. There's data. There's your data. to know whether it is safe enough to continue engaging in this vulnerable way or not. And if they do respond in a way that feels flippant or negative in any way to you, that's a great opportunity to use the own your own sentence structure we've talked about and show up as an equal in letting them know how their response affected you. But if they show up in a respectful, loving way to your vulnerability, you've just changed the trajectory of your relationship. 

15:28 

Okay, number three, be willing to put your wants and needs on the table. A long time ago, I told this story about my 90-Day Number One dating experience and being so, so scared to ask him to rub my shoulders once when I was so tense. And it took me about 10 minutes to get the courage to ask. We were sitting there just hanging out, just chatting. And I wanted so badly to ask him and I was terrified. It felt so vulnerable for me to ask, even though we had been dating for a couple of months. And what I received when I finally did ask was an instantaneous, "of course," and a shoulder rub. And that built trust for me. That was good data that let me know it was okay for me to be vulnerable in asking for something, in having a want. That trust then continued to spiral upwards because then I knew he would respond positively to my ask. And I could be vulnerable another time in asking for what I wanted. And it built the trust. To be an equal partner, we have to really believe that our wants and needs matter as much as the other person's wants and needs. They don't matter more, nor do they matter less. They matter the same. And it can feel really vulnerable sometimes to put those on the table, but that's an important way of showing up vulnerable. 

16:54 

Number four, take a chance that might lead to rejection. And this kind of aligns with the previous point that we just talked about. What makes something vulnerable is the unknown of how the other person will respond. When you first met your person, you didn't know how they would respond to you asking them out on a date, or reaching over to touch their hand, or leaning in for a hug, or for a kiss. The first move is super vulnerable because we aren't always sure it will be received well, but we can't move into the deeper levels of relationship without someone being willing to make the move, to ask the question, to share the emotion, or the failure, or the experience. It's all a chance that we might be rejected. 

17:41 

And if you've been in a vulnerable free zone in your marriage for some time, there is the fear that you might be rejected, which hurts a lot and would really suck. I get it. And yet, things will not get better until someone is willing to take a chance and be vulnerable. There's the chance that your spouse, your person, other person in the relationship, might respond with kindness and with love and with acceptance. They might just not know how to go there either. We just don't know. Maybe they won't, though. Maybe they'll be ornery. Okay, but we just don't know till we try, right? 

18:24 

Okay, number five is sharing personal details that you normally don't share. Sometimes even in connected relationships, we don't share everything because having the other person know these things about us would make us feel very exposed. For example, maybe you read a spicy novel to get your mind ready for sex, but you haven't let your spouse know because it just feels too vulnerable. Or maybe you have really judgmental thoughts about someone in your family or neighborhood or at church and you don't share because you don't want your spouse to think that you're so un-Christlike. 

19:04 

These are the kinds of things that we can share in our relationships that actually help us to step into vulnerability. They help us to really be seen for who we are. They open us up to being known at a deeper level. And yeah, it feels scary for sure. And yet it is the path to deeper connection. I found with Sione that when I share these types of details that I'm a little bit nervous to let him see what's going on in my brain, what's going on in my heart because as much as I trust him, I just have these fears sometimes, right? But when I share them and he responds with curiosity and with kindness rather than contempt or judgment, it builds trust and intimacy. 

19:57 

On the flip side of us being vulnerable, it is also important that we receive vulnerability from the other person with kindness, with love, with compassion, and grace. That means that what they vulnerably put on the table, we look at it and say, "oh, interesting. What are your thoughts about it? What feelings come up for you around this? What do you need from me? How can I best support you?" So, for example, when a husband shares with his wife his struggle with pornography, let's say he's had a 10-year struggle with pornography, and the woman freaks out. She starts crying. She starts saying, "you don't love me." You know, it's like having an affair, right? She isn't honoring his vulnerability. Think about what it takes for someone to finally share after years of hiding something. Freaking out, making it all about you and about how you're not good enough for him, crying, feeling insecure, telling him he's horrible and it's just like having an affair is not honoring his vulnerability. 

21:11 

I'm not saying that that that might not be a really difficult situation for you. But our job in the relationship circle is to hold space for the other person to be a human and when they show up vulnerable sharing something like that, it is important that we honor their vulnerability. We can have other discussions about what's going on, you know, if your spouse tells you that they've been having an affair. That's a vulnerable space. We can honor their vulnerability and we can have discussions about where that takes the marriage and where we are. But honoring the vulnerability is so vital. So responding with kindness and compassion and curiosity withholding judgment will go a long way to develop the trust to encourage further vulnerability. 

22:06 

And let's be honest. Sometimes hearing our spouse's failing failures and weaknesses can be scary. But that's the time we need to realize that their behavior doesn't have anything to do with us and that if we want to encourage deeper connection and vulnerability, it's important that we respond in a loving way. And we also have conversations about how that impacts us. But we don't do it from a place of attacking, accusing, blaming, or criticizing. 

22:40 

So number six, be willing to apologize and be willing to reconnect with someone you have fallen out with. It doesn't seem like apologizing should be such a big deal. But oh gosh, it feels like it doesn't it? Our egos can be so fragile sometimes that admitting we've done something wrong can feel very scary and vulnerable, even with people we feel really safe with. This last weekend I was on a trip with some really close coaching friends and I stepped into coaching mode with one of them when I needed to be in friend mode. They were sharing an experience and rather than being the friend, I started being the coach. So rather than listening and validating as a friend would, I started asking coaching questions. And when I realized it after the fact, I felt really bad. And even with this person whom I feel very safe with, my heart was still pounding a bit when I reached out to apologize for my behavior. I was nervous to admit that I had done something wrong. It felt more vulnerable than it was, which is often the point with vulnerability. It feels really big and huge until we do it and then we're like, "oh, that wasn't so hard," right? 

23:57 

And reaching out to someone we have been estranged from, that can feel very vulnerable as well. What if they reject us? What if they tell us really difficult things about how we hurt them? What if they reject the olive leaf? What if they refuse to forgive us? And yet, even if we are rejected, they might reject us, we can build our self-respect by knowing we acted from a place of alignment and with our values. And we will have strengthened our emotional self and our capacity to show up in healthy and helpful ways. 

24:35 

And the seventh one I want to share with you is set appropriate boundaries and or say "no" to a request. This always feels like a scary, vulnerable thing. I think for me it feels so vulnerable because I spent so many years thinking that it was my job to make sure that everyone else was comfortable. Setting myself a bit to the side so that everybody else could get what they wanted first. That feels so easy for me. It erroneously feels selfless. And heaven knows that every good woman needs to set aside her selfish desires and serve, serve, serve until she has a nervous breakdown. Okay, obviously kidding on that. But I know that many of you understand the sentiment. Learning to see ourselves as equals and act accordingly. 

25:25 

Setting boundaries and saying "no" can feel vulnerable. It can feel as though we are putting ourselves above others. We may wonder if we'll be judged for being selfish, for thinking that we're better than others, for being full of ourselves. And yet knowing we are acting from a good heart, not from a selfish place, that we are acting from a place of equality, from a place of self-love is what we need to have our own back when we do this vulnerability thing. We need to be clear and in full support of our why behind the boundary or the "no." And we have to understand that seeing ourselves as equals is not selfish. It is showing up who God created us to be. He created us to be equals. 

26:18 

Here's the deal about setting boundaries and saying "no." Other people may not love the boundaries we set. They may not love that we said "no" to a request. They may be frustrated that they aren't getting what they want. And that's okay. We get to want what we want and need what we need without explanation and without excuse. And when we first start setting boundaries and saying "no," it can feel super vulnerable as though we are setting ourselves up for rejection. And we might be rejected by someone we love. We might be ridiculed. They might walk away from the relationship. But if we are acting from a place of alignment with our values, we know that we can ultimately handle the exposure to other people's displeasure. We are building our strength and our self-respect. 

27:14 

If we're not in the habit of being vulnerable, it just might make your skin crawl to say "no" or to set a boundary. It can feel so uncomfortable, so scary, so exposing. And yet on the other side is a stronger, healthier, happier version of you. Even if they reject you. Even if they ridicule you. Even if they walk away from relationship with you. Because you will know that you are living the way you want to live. That you are exemplifying the characteristics that you value. That you are in alignment with who you ultimately want to be. And along the way, you collect data. Some of it is validating and encouraging and moves you into deeper emotional connection and intimacy. And some of the data will teach you that someone is not safe. And it'll teach you who doesn't want to be in a closer relationship with you. And though that can be hurtful and can make us really sad. It's also really useful information so that we can know how to grow forward. 

28:30 

The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships. And the quality of our relationships depends on our capacity to be vulnerable and to allow vulnerability in the other person. We will not create the depth of relationship that we crave without vulnerability. Isn't that brilliant stuff? You've got this. I know that you can step into a deeper level of vulnerability if it has been a challenge for you. This is part of growing up into better, healthier, happier relationships. I know you can do this. 

29:16 

If you would love some personal help from me figuring this out, understanding how to show up more vulnerable, really implementing the tools necessary to create the kind of relationship that you want or to collect the data that you need to know, do I stay here or do I go? I would love to work with you. I do free 90-minute coaching calls because I don't want to just talk to you about coaching and how much it costs and how it works and that. I want to coach you. I want to give you time to be coached on the struggles that you're working through so that you can experience the value of having a life coach in your life. I love my life coaches and they have pushed me and strengthened me and helped me to create this life that I'm living now, which just feels like a miracle to me. It literally feels like a miracle because these tools have helped me to create something that I did not have even the slightest capacity to create in my previous marriage and I count it as an honor to be able to work with you and help you create something similar. I know you can do it. I know you have what it takes. Sometimes we just need a little bit of guidance and understanding and that's what I'm here for. I've got your back. I've got your back until you can have your own back. 

30:51 

So go to tanyahale.com and get signed up for that and if you want to just talk about this in the Talk with Tanya, second Tuesday of every month, the next one is January 14th, which is tomorrow if you're listening to this on the day that it comes out. Hope to see you there. Have a great, great week my friends and I'll talk to you next time. Bye. 

31:11 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.