Daring greatly means the courage to BE VULNERABLE. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you are feeling. To have the hard conversations.

-Brené Brown

What’s up Y’all✋🏾. Today’s post would be a little bit different, and there is a possibility that the future posts would be like this. So I’d be talking about embracing vulnerability (obviously gal🤷🏾‍♀️, we can all see that). A little disclaimer I am not an expert on this, in fact, I’m a learner.

Two incidences come to mind when the word ‘vulnerability’ is mentioned. The first one was when I was much younger. I can’t remember what happened between my older sis and me, but she said “Why don’t you want to show your flaws to your friends” I shunned it off because I was never going to do that anyways. The second incident which I can’t also remember vividly, was recent (sometime this year). We were watching something on TV, and I think an actor did something that had to do with being vulnerable that I didn’t like, and I said: “I hate being vulnerable”. All this while I wasn’t conscious of my not wanting to be vulnerable all I know was I never wanted to be seen as weak.

I’m still learning about this whole thing, and I feel someone out there might also be experiencing the same thing. So, I’d like to share some tips I got from Brené Brown that can help embrace vulnerability but before that, why do we need to embrace vulnerability anyway? Brené Brown said this and I quote…

“Vulnerabilty is the core of fear, shame and our struggle of worthiness but it is also the birth place of joy, creativity, of belonging, and of love”

1. Try not to numb vulnerability – When we numb vulnerability we numb a lot of things, happiness, joy, and a lot of emotions. Oh, sweet Jesus! This is me. One time I told myself that I won’t cry over any bad incident that would happen to me, so, I just keep it all in and be like “I’ve got this, all will be fine”. But I’m learning it is ok to let it out sometimes and move on afterwards.
2. Know that everything can’t be perfect- As a perfectionist that I am, puff! This is a hard one. The annoying thing is, if things aren’t going the way it should ‘perfectly’ go, I get overwhelmed and push it away. Nothing can be perfect, so, be gentle with yourself and others.
3. Let yourselves be seen- I never want to do things that show that I’m vulnerable, I’d rather sit down in my chair than walk up to you to start a conversation that I am not sure would end up making me look stupid. Know that it is ok to fail, it’s part of learning.
4. Love with your whole heart without guarantee- If you don’t like to be vulnerable, you might get this. It is so hard to genuinely open up and love someone when you have no assurance that the person will bail out on you or not.
5. Ask for help when you need it – Chai chai chai!! Struggles bruh! I like to do it myself, I’ll tell you that I’d figure it out if I don’t know how to, #missindependent. Don’t get me wrong being independent is not wrong, but it’s good to understand that you can’t do it all on your own, even Jesus needed disciples during His time on earth. I’m learning that it is ok to ask for help when you need it and believe me, it can be difficult, but with practice, you’d scale through.
6. I am enough – Know and understand that you are enough and this is really important when accepting vulnerability because you know that no matter your flaws or how much you mess up you are enough.
7. Research on this topic, listen to people who have something to say on this (for example Bréne Brown), read books, pray, be willing and open to change. Also, know that it would take time so don’t be hard on yourself, a castle wasn’t built in a day.

“Accepting vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity and true confidence in one self.”

Accepting vulnerable might be as little as saying “I love you” first, sharing your feelings, raising your hand to say you don’t understand things in class and so on. I would love to hear from you guys. What is vulnerability to you and how do you embrace it?

Here is a video of Brené Brown talking about ‘the power of vulnerability’. You can check it out at your leisure time.

Outfit

• Shirt – SheIn
• Pants – SheIn
• WristWatch – H&M
• Sneakers – eBay

“Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end”

-Robin Sharma-