What Is Vulnerable Communication?
Vulnerability is often perceived as giving someone else the power to hurt us. We open up, reveal our true selves, and then anxiously wait to see how they respond. However, this understanding of vulnerability might be somewhat skewed. It’s commonly associated with exposing parts of ourselves that we’re ashamed of or afraid to share, essentially showing our ‘mess’ to someone else.
Considering vulnerability in such a light, it’s hardly surprising that it triggers anxiety! But what if we’ve got vulnerability all wrong? The practice of mindfulness teaches us that our thoughts are the only things capable of causing emotional pain.
The actions and words of others are neutral circumstances. It’s our brains that interpret them and decide how we should feel or think about them. This means the fear of vulnerability and the associated fear of rejection or hurt isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
It goes beyond simply fearing others’ opinions of us. The essence of true vulnerability lies in the fear that our own thoughts will wound us that we will be our own harshest. After all, it is we who are the architects of our emotional distress.
Let’s Get Vulnerable
Consider something about yourself that you freely share without a trace of vulnerability. Take your name or the color of your eyes, for instance.
Imagine telling someone about your eye color. Would that make you feel exposed or vulnerable? Most likely not. Now, what if their response was, “Oh, I don’t date people with brown eyes?” Chances are, you’d just shrug it off, thinking, “Well, that’s odd!” and continue on with your day.
This simple example shows that vulnerability is less about the information we share and more about how we perceive and react to others’ responses. It’s all about our mindset!
Now, think about something you feel vulnerable about.
Suppose you share this information with someone only to be rejected because of it. What’s the key difference? It lies in your perception of what you’ve shared. The vulnerability arises when we reveal something about ourselves that triggers feelings of anxiety, shame, distress, or fear.
Take note; we don’t feel vulnerable about aspects we’re comfortable or neutral with, like the color of our eyes. The vulnerability only seeps in when we’re dealing with topics that stir up negative emotions within us. It’s not about what we share but how we feel about what we’re sharing.
What Create’s Discomfort When We Are Vulnerable
What truly unnerves us? It’s the dreadful anticipation that someone else will validate our own negative self-perceptions. That’s where the real fear lies, making the whole situation feel intimidating.
When we hesitate to share something, worrying it might push people away, we’re essentially distancing ourselves from our own truth. The fear of their rejection is, in reality, a reflection of our own fear – the fear of rejecting ourselves.
Yet, this fear of rejection is closely linked to why being vulnerable can be such an empowering experience. When we bare our insecurities or shame to someone else, and their response is one of kindness, more gentle than our own harsh self-judgment, we can momentarily adopt their compassionate view, helping us feel better about ourselves as we learn to replace our negative thoughts with their positive ones.
Naturally, the reverse can also be true. If we open up to someone and they respond negatively, it feels like a harsh blow, multiplying our distress. This is because their negative response seems to validate our own self-doubt, turning it into what feels like concrete “proof” of our perceived inadequacies.
In reality, as adults, the person we’re most emotionally susceptible to is ourselves. The only individual who truly has the power to affect your emotions is none other than you.
What Is Vulnerability?
Vulnerability can be accurately described as revealing your true self to others, even when it terrifies you. However, it’s crucial to realize that the fear you’re battling is your own and not someone else’s. It’s about stepping forward and sharing despite the unease you feel.
Genuine vulnerability doesn’t hand over the power to others to wound you; instead, it offers you the chance to confront your own pain. It’s about willingly embracing discomfort and fear and still showing up regardless. It’s about the courage to let your true self be seen – no matter how flawed or imperfect you perceive it to be – not just by others but, most significantly, by yourself.
Choosing to acknowledge that you’re not perfect, that you grapple with negative emotions, and that there are aspects of yourself that you fear or feel embarrassed about is an act of bravery.
Despite these imperfections, you remain deserving of love and support.
This is how vulnerability paves the way for intimacy – a term we use to encapsulate the deep affection we experience when we believe that we are genuinely seen, understood, and accepted by someone else.
When we open up about our innermost thoughts and feelings to someone else, it allows us to truly connect with ourselves on a profound level. We learn to voice out what we believe to be our flaws, and through this process, we discover how to love ourselves despite them.
First Identify The Emotion to Be Vulnerable
Many of us in relationships struggle to be vulnerable with our emotions, primarily because we’re not entirely sure what we’re genuinely feeling.
Identifying and reflecting on your emotions is not an easy process. Countless internal and external factors make the simple process of identifying your emotions and making sense of them more difficult than it needs to be.
One of these factors is the stigma society has placed on feeling and, even more so, expressing negative emotions. We’ve been trained to believe that being mad or sad is a bad thing that reflects poorly on our character.
Growing up, when you were angry or sad, you may have been told to go to your room and not to come out until you were in a better mood. Therefore, poor emotional regulation skills are often learned in childhood and follow us late into our lives until we teach the same strategies to our children, and the cycle continues.
Learning To Get To The Root
Isolating ourselves and suppressing our emotions isn’t helpful, as it doesn’t teach us how to cope or deal with our feelings in healthy ways. Then, as adults, when we’re faced with another person feeling the same or similar negative emotions, it becomes very difficult to hear the other person and understand where they’re coming from.
Instead of taking the time to get to the root of the problem, your response is to get away from the situation and avoid the conversation be- cause it’s much easier and it’s what you’ve been conditioned to do.
As a result, you continue to bottle up your feelings or engage in reckless behavior, which is not a healthy coping mechanism. Once it’s out of your mind, you and your partner return to business as usual, as if nothing ever happened.
Until the next time a similar situation rolls around.
This futile cycle can become very messy for couples. If there’s no solution and only avoidance, the problem never really goes away. Once you are more practiced in identifying and understanding your emotions and triggers, the next step is paying attention to how you express your emotions.
It’s very important here to bear in mind the age-old expression: it’s not just what you say but how you say it.
It All Matters
In addition to using clear language that accurately represents your feelings and demonstrates a rational consideration of the context of the situation, pay attention to the non-verbal cues you give off, such as the tone and volume of your voice, your body language, and other things you do to tell your partner how to interpret your emotional state.
Sometimes, all you need is to take a deep breath and collect yourself so that your negative emotion doesn’t drive the conversation. The skills you’ve learned so far will help you to dig past the surface of what’s underneath your emotions.
When communicating with your partner, get to the root of the emotion.
Don’t just say, “This makes me mad.” Let them know that you’re feeling inadequate or embarrassed and that when they behave a certain way, it triggers an emotion that may have a similar effect on them.
When it comes to these situations, the way your message is packaged and delivered communicates important context to your partner that gives them cues for how to process and reflect on what you’re experiencing. Again, you want to deliver a clear, concise, and on-topic message.
WINNING
To construct a clear message that your partner will easily understand, I like to use a technique I call the W.I.N. method.
The W
The “W” stands for “When,” as in “When is this happening?” This relates to your triggers. When is it that you feel ashamed or incompetent? What actions or words do you hear from your partner or otherwise trigger these emotions? Be specific about what it is that’s going on to make you feel a certain way. That allows you to stay focused on yourself versus telling your partner what they “always” do, which only breeds contempt and causes your partner to become defensive.
The I
The “I” is simple – it stands for “I.” As in you. This component focuses on what you are feeling. “What am I experiencing?” If this is starting to feel familiar, it’s because, together, these two components make up “I feel…” statements, a common conflict resolution technique by which you express your feelings using the format “When you do [x], I feel [y].”
The N
What sets the W.I.N. method apart is the addition of the “N” or “needs.” What are the needs that you are asking your partner to fulfill? What do you want to see happen to feel better about what is happening? The needs should be practical, reasonable, and expressed. Avoid the expectation that your partner can or should agree to meet these needs automatically. Their needs are important here, too.
Sometimes, it may be the case that you and your partner’s needs conflict. This is a normal occurrence, but so many of us ignore it, leading us to further bottle our emotions and ultimately develop resentment towards our partner in the long term.
Acknowledging this possibility may lead to new, equally difficult conversations, but at least there will be mutual understanding; each party will be heard and understood, which is the only way to get anywhere.
So, what does this W.I.N method look like in real time?
I’ll use an example from my own life to illustrate this technique. There was a point in my life when Joshua was working long hours, and we hadn’t been spending any quality time together. Quality time is very important to me, and the one time we had an opportunity to spend time together, he chose to hang out with his friends instead.
Naturally, I felt lonely, sad, upset, and disappointed. I was taking it very personally. “Why don’t you want to spend time with me?” “Do you even still care?” These thoughts were coming up for me in association with the awful feelings I’d felt.
I could approach Joshua with these expressions of hurt and abandonment in this way, but would it have solved the situation? I don’t think so.
If I would apply the W.I.N. formula, here is how it would go:
Let’s start with “When.” When was I experiencing these emotions? When we didn’t have much time to spend together, especially when he used the time we could spend together to be with his friends. Bingo.
How did I feel as a result? Lonely and disappointed.
What did I need? I needed reassurance that he wanted to spend time with me. I didn’t need him to say it; I needed him to do it.
Making A Win Statement
In this case, my W.I.N. statement looked like this: “When we don’t spend enough quality time together, and you choose to spend time with your friends instead of me, I feel lonely and disappointed. I would like for us to make our quality time a priority and schedule date nights.”
Suppose I was clear about what was going on, how it made me feel, and what could be done to fix it. The approach would probably offer a greater chance of being heard by my partner.
Again, if I went into the situation angrily and said, “We never spend time together, and you always choose your friends.” That could easily be interpreted as a green light for an argument and for Joshua — who was genuinely stressed out about his long hours — to become defensive.
Stay away from absolute statements like, “You always do this” or “You never do that,” and keep your message specific and set the correct expectations for the situation to change.
Remember: this doesn’t mean you should accept mistreatment and satisfy a partner who regularly ignores your needs. Just because you are doing the work of communicating effectively and trying to avoid lashing out at your partner, it doesn’t mean that anger is never justified.
Unfortunately, it may well be the case that your partner isn’t interested in communicating effectively or reciprocating in the work of meeting each other’s needs. In this case, their refusal to hear you can also be brought into the discussion.
You might say, “When you ignore my expressions of hurt and loneliness and refuse to take actions that we’ve agreed on, I feel abandoned and manipulated.”
If your partner feels this is unfounded or miscommunication, they might explain that they weren’t trying to ignore you or trying to take those actions but may have misunderstood your request.
But if they refuse to hear you or, once again, agree to act after clarifying the expectation but fail to follow through, anger may be a justified emotion. You may want to consider moving forward from a relationship like this if your partner is not as committed as you are to mutual understanding and doing the necessary work to get through difficult conversations.
Exercise
Take a moment and think about a recent argument you had. It can be almost anything. How would applying the W.I.N. formula have helped steer the discussion in a healthy direction? Write out your W.I.N. statement, and take some time to reflect!
