Брене Браун: Daring Greatly

Our rejection of vulnerability often stems from our associating it with dark emotions like fear, shame, grief, sadness, and disappointment—emotions that we don’t want to discuss, even when they profoundly affect the way we live, love, work, and even lead. What most of us fail to understand and what took me a decade of research to learn is that vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions and experiences that we crave. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

I know this is hard to believe, especially when we’ve spent our lives thinking that vulnerability and weakness are synonymous, but it’s true. I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability. Love is uncertain. It’s incredibly risky. And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed. Yes, it’s scary and yes, we’re open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved?

To put our art, our writing, our photography, our ideas out into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation—that’s also vulnerability. To let ourselves sink into the joyful moments of our lives even though we know that they are fleeting, even though the world tells us not to be too happy lest we invite disaster—that’s an intense form of vulnerability.

The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we’re losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability.

It starts to make sense that we dismiss vulnerability as weakness only when we realize that we’ve confused feeling with failing and emotions with liabilities . If we want to reclaim the essential emotional part of our lives and reignite our passion and purpose, we have to learn how to own and engage with our vulnerability and how to feel the emotions that come with it. For some of us, it’s new learning, and for others it’s relearning. Either way, the research taught me that the best place to start is with defining, recognizing, and understanding vulnerability.

What really brings the definition of vulnerability up close and personal are the examples people shared when I asked them to finish this sentence stem: “Vulnerability is ______________. ” Here are some of the replies:

Sharing an unpopular opinion

Standing up for myself

Asking for help

Saying no

Starting my own business

Helping my thirty-seven-year-old wife with Stage 4 breast cancer make decisions about her will

Initiating sex with my wife

Initiating sex with my husband

Hearing how much my son wants to make first chair in the orchestra and encouraging him while knowing that it’s probably not going to happen

Calling a friend whose child just died

Signing up my mom for hospice care

The first date after my divorce

Saying, “I love you,” first and not knowing if I’m going to be loved back

Writing something I wrote or a piece of art that I made

Getting promoted and not knowing if I’m going to succeed

Getting fired

Falling in love

Trying something new

Bringing my new boyfriend home

Getting pregnant after three miscarriages

Waiting for the biopsy to come back

Reaching out to my son who is going through a difficult divorce

Exercising in public, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m out of shape

Admitting I’m afraid

Stepping up to the plate again after a series of strikeouts

Telling my CEO that we won’t make payroll next month

Laying off employees

Presenting my product to the world and getting no response

Standing up for myself and for friends when someone else is critical or gossiping

Being accountable

Asking for forgiveness

Having faith

Do these sound like weaknesses? Does showing up to be with someone in deep struggle sound like a weakness? Is accepting accountability weak? Is stepping up to the plate after striking out a sign of weakness? NO. Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.

Yes, we are totally exposed when we are vulnerable. Yes, we are in the torture chamber that we call uncertainty. And, yes, we’re taking a huge emotional risk when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. But there’s no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness.

When we asked the question “How does vulnerability feel?” the answers were equally as powerful:

It’s taking off the mask and hoping the real me isn’t too disappointing.

Not sucking it in anymore.

It’s where courage and fear meet.

You are halfway across a tightrope, and moving forward and going back are both just as scary.

Sweaty palms and a racing heart.

Scary and exciting; terrifying and hopeful.

Taking off a straitjacket.

Going out on a limb—a very, very high limb.

Taking the first step toward what you fear the most.

Being all in.

It feels so awkward and scary, but it makes me human and alive.

A lump in my throat and a knot in my chest.

The terrifying point on a roller coaster when you’re about to tip over the edge and take the plunge.

Freedom and liberation.

It feels like fear, every single time.

Panic, anxiety, fear, and hysteria, followed by freedom, pride, and amazement—then a little more panic.

Baring your belly in the face of the enemy.

Infinitely terrifying and achingly necessary.

I know it’s happening when I feel the need to strike first before I’m struck.

It feels like free-falling.

Like the time between hearing a gunshot and waiting to see if you’re hit.

Letting go of control.

And the answer that appeared over and over in all of our efforts to better understand vulnerability? Naked.

Vulnerability is like being naked onstage and hoping for applause rather than laughter.

It’s being naked when everyone else is fully clothed.

It feels like the naked dream: You’re in the airport and you’re stark naked.

When discussing vulnerability, it is helpful to look at the definition and etymology of the word vulnerable . According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word vulnerability is derived from the Latin word vulnerare, meaning “to wound.” The definition includes “capable of being wounded” and “open to attack or damage.” Merriam-Webster defines weakness as the inability to withstand attack or wounding. Just from a linguistic perspective, it’s clear that these are very different concepts, and in fact, one could argue that weakness often stems from a lack of vulnerability—when we don’t acknowledge how and where we’re tender, we’re more at risk of being hurt.

Psychology and social psychology have produced very persuasive evidence on the importance of acknowledging vulnerabilities. From the field of health psychology, studies show that perceived vulnerability, meaning the ability to acknowledge our risks and exposure, greatly increases our chances of adhering to some kind of positive health regimen. In order to get patients to comply with prevention routines, they must work on perceived vulnerability. And what makes this really interesting is that the critical issue is not about our actual level of vulnerability, but the level at which we acknowledge our vulnerabilities around a certain illness or threat.