Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
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What we're going to be discussing is the idea of vulnerability and why vulnerability can be scary to engage in, but why it's so beneficial to be vulnerable. Now, before we get started, I want to give you guys a little bit of a preface.
If while you're listening to this episode, you realize, man, what they're talking about sounds great in theory, but realistically, I don't feel like I could ever trust people to be vulnerable with them in the way that they're describing here, then it probably means that you're struggling with a negative belief like, I cannot trust anyone. And if that's the case, and you'd like to unlock your ability to work at being vulnerable, and really truly having deep connections with people.
We have a link in our description below where you can set up a consultation with us, or you can set up an appointment and we can get working right away. All right, guys, let's jump right in. So let's get started by taking a minute to think about what are your perceptions or views of vulnerability. And like Tim was just talking about, it may be a scary thing for you. But really take the time to think from a couple of different perspectives.
When I think about being vulnerable, what does that make me feel? What do I think about that? What am I worried about with it? Am I worried that people are going to think I'm weak? Am I worried that they're going to use it against me? What are the different perceptions that I have of when I'm being vulnerable? But the other perspective that I want you to think about is, how do you see the vulnerability of other people?
Because a lot of times we have different lenses on how we see ourselves doing something versus how we see others doing the same thing. And I can't say that it's one way or the other, because I think for some people, they're a lot more judgmental on other people and a lot more gracious with themselves. But for a lot of people, they're harsher with themselves and more gracious to other people. So whichever way you view it, it may impact how you behave and how vulnerable you are.
But overall, I just want you to take the time to really think about what your perception of vulnerability is as we go into today's episode. So when we look at vulnerability, it's not just about sharing deep, dark secrets or personal details. Vulnerability is really having an openness. And a lot of times it may feel uncomfortable.
And so as you're open with your thoughts and your emotions, your perspective on things, maybe times when you're hurt, times when you've been wrong, all of that opens you up to the possibility of connection and understanding with the person that you're being vulnerable with. But the other side of this is it also opens you up to the possibility of rejection. And I think it's that risk as well as that uncomfortability that causes people not to be vulnerable and not to open up.
And I think, too, a lot of times people overestimate the danger in being vulnerable. And what happens is your unspecified fear of what could happen is actually way worse than if you sit down and you actually calculate what is the worst possible outcome if I actually am vulnerable with this person.
And I do think if you stop and you take a little bit of time and you think through what are the potential benefits versus what are the potential consequences of being vulnerable, vulnerable what you are going to find is that really there are generally pretty few consequences in most scenarios and with most people for being vulnerable. Don't get me wrong there are some times where it can come back to bite you but the majority of the time people don't want to intentionally harm other people.
They don't want to break people's trust. Now that's not to say that people don't incidentally do that frequently because I do think that that does happen but as As far as maliciously, that's not super common. Now, some people, especially if they have parents who are narcissistic or borderline, you may experience a lot more of that intentional malicious interaction. But that's one person that you're interacting with, and they're not a good gauge for how the rest of humanity is.
And so definitely, it's not always safe in every situation with every single person. You do have to stop and calculate the risk versus reward type of scenario. And sometimes it is better to take more time to vet people because of the potential risk that goes along with it.
I would say for example like with your boss you would want to take a little bit more time to be vulnerable with them because you don't know if they're trustworthy and they are in a big position of power over you and revealing too much to them could cause them to view you in a negative light and then put you in a difficult financial position. And then also the particular topic and how vulnerable it is for you to be sharing the thing. How much would it hurt if somebody used this?
And so in general, what you're going to do when you're seeking to be vulnerable with somebody is you generally start off with lightly vulnerable things. So if you say it and then somebody abuses that light level of vulnerability that you gave them, it's not unbelievably damaging or detrimental to you. And then you know with that person, I'm not going to go any deeper than that because it seems like they're likely to abuse my vulnerability.
But just the fact that people could abuse your vulnerability isn't a good reason to never be vulnerable because then you're also barring yourself off from very deep and meaningful relationships that you can create and the truth is you can't create deep and meaningful relationships without deep levels of vulnerability.
Oh absolutely and I think there's a lot of wisdom in really looking at the person and looking at the situation as well as using your past experiences experiences to kind of gauge if it's safe to be vulnerable. But you do have to be careful because when I said using your past experiences to see if you're going to be vulnerable, if you've been burned in the past and you've been vulnerable and it was used against you and it really hurt you, then your gauge may be a little off.
It may not be working correctly because once we've been hurt, it's easy to hide away and be afraid of that vulnerability in the future. And your gauge is telling you, well, that's not safe. Don't share that. It's too early. They're going to use it against you when it may be a perfectly safe person. But your past hurt and that fear that comes with it might be holding you back from a lot of great relationships that could be. And there's a really great book. It's just a children's book.
It's called Jonathan James and the What If Monster. and I will try and find it and read it on our Facebook group because I think it's such a good book to really show both sides of the coin and showing both the risks and the rewards to when we are vulnerable and when we do things that are uncomfortable. So Jonathan James in the What If Monster, in the beginning he goes through all of these things that could be an issue.
Well, what if I talk to those kids and they laugh at me? Or what if I jump into the pool and this happens? And he goes scene after scene of his what ifs. And then as he continues on through the book, he starts to talk about the positive things. Well, what if I talk to those kids and one of them becomes my best friend? And what if I jump into the pool and everyone thinks that's so cool?
And so when we're looking at vulnerability, we're, there is a chance that you will get hurt, but there's also a chance you will develop really rich relationships and go past the surface level conversations that you've been having maybe week in and week out, maybe year in, year out with the same people. And actually going along with what you're saying, I think there's a saying I really like. The saying is pessimistic people are right and optimistic people are successful.
And I think in this regard, a lot of times you can look at a situation and you can think, well, that's scary or there's these downfalls. And you might be right and there might be some rocky roads and there might be things that don't go right. But if you never try, then you are not going to be successful. Versus optimistic people, they might fail a lot, but because they keep trying, they end up finding things that work and they end up being successful on the other end.
And so you can be right but then not be happy versus you can be wrong and fail a lot but then and be happier because then you're successful in your relationships. Not in all of them, but in order to have one of those deep, meaningful relationships, you have to try. And you will run into people where you fail, where it doesn't go well, where maybe they betray your trust.
But then you will find those diamonds that are worth working through to try to find them because they bring so much to your life. But the only way to really find those relationships is to risk the failure, and you will fail with some people. And that's just something that's baked into the cake. If you don't take that into consideration, yes, I am going to find people who are going to hurt me on occasion.
But if I keep working, I will find those people who will pour so deeply into my life that it's worth any and all of the pain along the road to find them. I have this one client in particular, I remember, who always wore a very heavy mask and was always trying to present what they thought would be an acceptable personality to whoever they were around. And I remember them telling me one time that they had this one friendship that was so deep, that was so meaningful, and so important.
And I asked them a question. I said, how much does that person know about you? And they said, everything. They know everything about me. There's not anything about my life that they don't know. And I said, what would you give to have two or three more friends that are that meaningful and are that deep of a friendship to you? And immediately, without even thinking, they said, I'd give anything. And I said, what you have to give is vulnerability.
What you said right there is they know everything about you, meaning you have been completely and utterly vulnerable with this person, whether it was intentional or it's just life circumstances where they were there and they saw all these vulnerable moments and experiences with you, they know everything. And if you want other people like that in your life, you have to end up getting to that depth and level of vulnerability. Now, it's not something you do on day one of a friendship.
It's definitely something that happens over not even months, but definitely years of a process that takes. But if you don't take that first step on that first day, you will never get there. And I think going off of what you said, the more vulnerable you are, I think the shorter the time is to really build that connection. So it absolutely could take years, like you're saying.
But if you are in a situation where you just really connect with someone and you begin to be open about things, maybe they've had the the same medical crisis that you have or your family has had, and you just begin to be open and share about things, there's a deep connection that happens. And maybe like your client, they don't know everything about them, but there begins to be a strong connection because of the depth of vulnerability there.
And so there is a lot of fear, and I know that it is scary to be vulnerable. But something my pastor said this week really resonated with me. And he said that our deepest desires aren't always our strongest desires. And he was using it in the context of our deepest desires to honor God and bring glory to him and follow him sometimes get superseded by our strongest desires in those moments. But we really have to stay in tune with what are our deepest desires.
And we could probably do a whole podcast just on that quote because I think it applies to a lot of things. But to bring it back to what we're talking about here, when we look at our deepest desires versus our strongest desires, our deepest desires are those connections and that relationship and to be in community with people in a very genuine and honest way where it doesn't feel like we're always hiding or afraid that people are gonna find us out or like you said, always wearing a mask.
But our strongest desires sometimes win out when we begin to be afraid because our strong desire in that moment is safety and control. Whether it's control over yourself or controlling the situation. Those strong desires in the moment are going to win out over that deeper desire of connection. All right, you guys, I know there's so much we can talk about vulnerability and just your experiences with it, but we're going to stop here for today and we'll jump back into it in the next episode.
We hope you guys have a great day and remember, your mind is a powerful thing. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend? Also, we'd love for you to leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It lights us up to know that this podcast is helping you. If you have any questions or a topic you'd like discussed in future episodes,
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