With speaking and listening comes connection.  Connection creates a space to share our thoughts, feelings, desires, mistakes, heartaches – in a nutshell, to be vulnerable.  But just because there is a speaker and a listener doesn’t mean one should be vulnerable.  We don’t approach someone we’ve never met and share our sorrows, our shame, our fondest dreams and desires.  We are free to be vulnerable with those who’ve earned the right to hear our stories.

Brené Brown has been a Shame Researcher for over 15 years.  She strives to understand why people feel shame, what helps them get out of it, and how we can help each other out of it.  She has a couple fabulous TED talks and has written a number of books.  Many of the ideas around vulnerability come from her.  In the latest of her works that I’ve read, she writes that…

• Shame is universal – male and female, all races, all ages, all cultures; every human will and does experience shame.
• We can all develop Shame Resilience – “the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience.”
• Shame needs three things to grow – secrecy, silence, and judgment.

To overcome the secrecy and silence shame craves, we have to be vulnerable in sharing with someone else.  Because we all feel shame, we know that there are others who will be able to understand how we feel and why; we only need to find those that won’t continue the judgment towards us that we’ve already started. So, who is willing to listen to our shame stories in a way that doesn’t cause more shame? Who has earned the right to hear you or me because we know they will be empathetic?  And who are we giving the gift of empathy to such that they have an avenue for vulnerability?  Finding one, two, or a handful of people to be vulnerable with is essential to overcoming shame and moving on from it.

First, a list of actions that destroy the ability to be vulnerable (don’t share with those that do these and strive to not do them yourself around others):

1. The listener who actually feels shame for the speaker. They gasp and confirm how horrified the speaker should feel, and many times the speaker ends up making the listener feel better.
2. The listener who responds with sympathy instead of empathy, by saying things that mean “I feel sorry for you.”
3. The listener who can’t listen in empathy because they’re too disappointed in the speaker’s imperfections.
4. The listener, who being uncomfortable with vulnerability, will scold the speaker or look for someone to blame. Examples are “How could you let this happen?” and “Who did this to you; let’s go take care of them!”
5. The listener, who being uncomfortable with vulnerability, refuses to acknowledge that you can actually be crazy and make terrible choices – “You’re exaggerating. Everyone loves you. You’re perfect.”
6. The listener who tries to one-up the speaker with their own stories.

The opposite of these is, of course, listening with empathy.

Brené’s tools in building shame resilience are courage, compassion, and connection.

When we have the courage to be vulnerable, speaking our heart, asking for things we need, asking questions when it feels awkward, sharing our excitement over something just for us, and expressing to another how we’re all in this together, all making mistakes at times, there is a ripple effect.  Others see that it’s okay to be vulnerable too.

When we share compassion with others as equals, not as wounded and healer, or teacher and student, but as equals – in this together, all making mistakes, having the ability to offer help to each other AND receive it from each other – the avenue to vulnerability opens wide.

When we build connections (Brené’s definition – energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.), there is also a ripple effect.  We are hard wired for connection and relationship.  But connection only happens on a two-way street.  Brené says, “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”  She says that when we are always the one helping, we probably derive self-worth from helping others while striving to be self-sufficient.

References from The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, Ph.D. L.M.S.W. 2010