Making Yourself Vulnerable — Why Would You?
Lately the term “making yourself vulnerable” comes up more and more often. It’s said to create a strong emotional connection and — if you’re capable of it — greatly improve your relationships with others. And not just the one with your partner, but also with your best friend, that one colleague you share an office with, and so on. But how DO you do it?
Making yourself vulnerable is really something different from sharing all your troubles with someone at the first meeting, or constantly digging up old grievances. No, to me, making yourself vulnerable means taking responsibility for your own emotions from your adult position — that is, from your autonomous part — and making them discussable from that part. If you don’t dare to make yourself vulnerable in your relationship, it can sometimes feel like you’re living as brother and sister. How do you have that kind of conversation, and why does it so often go wrong?
The parent position
In my book Cheating. Moving Forward Together in 5 Steps, I describe that as a person you can enter into a conversation with someone else from 3 positions. From the parent position, you can be supportive, caring, or critical toward your partner, as in: “You need to exercise more, eat healthier.” In this form of communicating, the word “should” often comes up.
The child position
You can also speak from the child position. From this position you’ll quickly adapt, ignore, or withdraw. These are all reactions based on your feelings. Characteristic of this position is that the dialogue often comes with intense emotions, and words like “everyone, always, never” are often used. Or you go quiet instead and withdraw. You go out of contact. You often then talk to yourself and think, for example: “You never listen to me either.” Do you hear yourself saying it already? This is really a lesson in self-awareness!
The adult position
As mentioned, making yourself vulnerable requires you to respond from your adult position. In this position you’re open toward the other person, able to ask questions, but also to state your boundaries. You’re also able to clearly communicate your own emotions about a certain event or situation, and not in the lecturing (parent position) or accusing (child position) way.
They’re your feelings, not the other person’s!
What goes wrong, in my view, is that we often hold the other person responsible for our emotions, but that’s not how it works. Because even if your partner has hurt you, betrayed you, or not supported you, your feelings are still yours, not the other person’s, and so the responsibility lies with you. The only thing you can do is make the other person aware of your feelings. When you express that in a way where you indicate how you feel and what you need, you’ll notice that you immediately start to feel calmer. As a result, you’ll often also get more understanding from the other person, because they don’t feel attacked and can really hear your request for help.
Knowing what you feel
In short, responding from your adult part creates connection and is the most constructive. Pretty logical, really — nobody wants a shouting or bossy conversation. This sounds logical, and yet it’s often difficult to break this pattern, especially if you’ve been communicating with each other this way for years. It’s become an automatic habit, a question-and-answer game that runs on autopilot. Changing that requires a lot of awareness of your own behavior and your ingrained way of communicating.
On top of that, there are many people who aren’t aware of what they feel. They’re not in touch with their own emotions, let alone able to share them with someone else! Only once you have real attention for your emotional life and know what’s going on in your inner world can you make yourself vulnerable. Growing that awareness happens in a number of steps. It’s a process of: denying, recognizing, acknowledging to yourself, and then confessing to the other person that you’re dealing with certain emotions.
Why are we so clumsy with our emotions?
I think it’s because we’ve never learned that they belong to us and are allowed to get room and attention. We bury so many things. We talk about all sorts of things, except what it’s really about. Sometimes that makes you feel truly undervalued. On top of that, in many circles and even in many families it’s simply not done to talk about feelings — just think of the business world, where you mainly have to be tough, and expressing emotions is seen as a sign of weakness. But it isn’t! Making yourself vulnerable is taking care of your inner world, with the result that you’re able to connect with the other person on a deeper level!
Bio
Jacqueline Evers is a relationship therapist who helps couples build a loving, fulfilling relationship instead of a bitter and costly divorce. Over the past 16 years, she has helped more than 1,350 people through individual and relationship therapy. With her book ‘Cheating. Moving Forward Together in 5 Steps’, she offers couples affected by infidelity a new way of loving. She regularly works with expats and wrote the e-book ‘Cheating. 5 Steps to Recover from Infidelity.’ She works from her practices in Huizen, Almere Poort, and online, and is regularly heard on NPO1 radio. The Loveworkx podcasts can be heard on Spotify, among other platforms.