Six Myths of Vulnerability, according Brené Brown

This is the definition given by Brené Brown, a researcher and scholar who studies shame and vulnerability. She is a professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation-Brené Brown Endowed Chair at The Graduate College of Social Work. Her books, many of which I recommend on my Books Club page, include The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, and most recently, Braving the Wilderness.

Failure and vulnerability are essential for learning, personal development and spiritual growth. What goes wrong for us teaches more than what goes right. What we know to be our flaws and working on them, whilst risking judgement, makes you a better person, more so than working on what we know to be our strengths.

Brown came to prominence when she shared what she was learning at a TEDx talk in her hometown of Houston that has become one of the most widely viewed TED talks of all time. She stumbled on the value of vulnerability, which sounds negative in modern ears, whilst researching the nature of “wholehearted lives”

Brené is now an in demand teacher in all kinds of settings, at every level of leadership, on this ancient and basic truth.

In her Netflix special, ‘The Call to Courage‘, Brené Brown dispelled six of the common perceptions about vulnerability.

1. Vulnerability is weakness

Brené asked a team of Special Forces soldiers if they could think of an example of courage in their life or someone else’s life that did not require uncertainty, risk and/or emotional exposure. There was a long silence. Eventually a young man stood up and said, “Three tours, mam. There is no courage without vulnerability”.

Can you think of a single example of courage that you have witnessed in your life or a friend’s or a colleague’s that did not require uncertainty, risk or emotional exposure?

I do not think you can. There is no courage without vulnerability.

We buy into some mythology about vulnerability being weakness and being gullibility and being frailty because it gives us permission not to do it.

Most people are raised to believe that courage is an important value. Unfortunately, if you took a survey on the street and asked if the persons were raised to believe that vulnerability is weakness, I am sure that a large percentage would say in the affirmative.

I most certainly was raised to believe that vulnerability is weakness, whether deliberately or not. I am a man, raised in ’80s and ’90s Australia where you were not supposed to be a ‘woose’. Where you are always competing with your mates to one up them and never show a chink in your emotional and physical armour.

Here’s the paradox: be brave but never put yourself out there. It does not exist.

2. I don’t do vulnerability

Yes, you do! From the moment you slid down the birth canal to whatever point you are in your life now, you have faced uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. You have been vulnerable.

You only have two options:

• you do vulnerability knowingly
• vulnerability does you over

If you are not sure which one is happening to you, go to a friend or family member and says, “Do you think I do vulnerability well?” Then step back and take in the truth. I guarantee you will be doing vulnerability right there.

Here’s why we need it. It is so much easier to cause pain than to feel pain. People are taking their pain and working it out on other people. When you do not acknowledge your vulnerability, you take your sh*t out on another person. Stop working your sh*t out on other people!

It’s fine if you have a lot of chaos going on in your life. Most people do. The trick is not offloading you hard stuff on other people.

3. I can go it alone

You can not do vulnerability without engaging with others.

Humans are a social animal. By being able to cooperate with other members made homo sapiens the dominant species on the planet. We are neurobiologically hard-wired for connection with other people. In the absence of connection, love and belonging there is always suffering.

You can not go it alone.

If you could, I would’ve found a way by now. As a shy extrovert who suffers evaluation apprehension, who loves my friends and family but is a bit comme ci, comme ca on other people, I would have found a way.

4. I can hack vulnerability so that there is no uncertainty or discomfort

A lot of people are high-teching their lives. They are collecting data. Trying to ‘hack’ their thoughts, diets and relationships. I do it. That is what this blog is about, leveraging human cognition and perception.

There is no algorithm that will tell you when it is fine to be vulnerable with other people. The minute it becomes comfortable, it is no longer vulnerability. You can not make an app that removes the discomfort from vulnerability.

5. Trust comes before vulnerability

This is a hard one to rectify. Should you trust someone before you expose your uncertainty to them? Do you need to be vulnerable before you can learn to trust someone?

The answer is ‘yes’ to both questions. It is a slow stacking of vulnerability and trust over time. You don’t tell your darkest secret to someone after you tell them your name. We start with little things and we build trust over time. The more I share with you and the more you honour that sharing, the more trust is built.

You share with persons who have earned the right to hear your story. Your story is a privilege to hear. You share it with those who have earned the right to hear it. You do not share it ‘just because’.

Vulnerability minus boundaries is not vulnerability

6. Vulnerability is disclosure

This relates to the boudary thing. Live streaming your bikini wax is not vulnerability. Posting the intimate details of your divorce and your pain on Facebook for your kids and the guy you met at a party once to read is not vulnerability.

You do not measure vulnerability by the amount of disclosure. You measure it by the amount of courage it took to show up and be seen when you can not control the outcome.

So, there you have it. Don’t confuse vulnerability for what it is not. And go out there and practice it if you want to live of a “wholehearted life”.

Enjoy,
Scott

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