Category: Uncategorized

Sharing our genuine feelings, thoughts, and truths about ourselves can be immensely rewarding by allowing us to form deeper connections with others. Learning how to be vulnerable can also liberate us from the restraints of self-doubt, fear, and insecurity and help us live our lives fearlessly, open to new experiences and opportunities.

However, being vulnerable doesn’t mean sharing every single detail with just anybody. When it comes to interpersonal relationships, establishing healthy boundaries and respecting them is necessary and beneficial for both sides. Boundaries are also crucial for expressing vulnerability. Sharing does help us build profound connections and empathy with other people, however we also need to respect their boundaries and preferences.

Embracing your vulnerability and being able to openly talk about yourself, your life, and even deeply personal feelings or events is healthy. However, context is everything. Sharing deeply sensitive information in inappropriate situations or among people who are not ready to offer the corresponding level of intimacy or support might lead you to conclude that your expectations were not realistic. It can backfire on you if you are not considering your “audience.”

What Is The Difference Between Vulnerability And Oversharing?

Expectations are crucial when it comes to the difference between healthy, open conversation and oversharing. If you’re unsure whether something is honest vulnerability or oversharing, consider the motives and expectations behind it by answering some of these questions:

• Why are you sharing this?
• What kind of outcome are you expecting or hoping for?
• What are you feeling while you’re sharing with others?
• What are your intentions, and do they reflect your life values?
• Would a lack of response or a particular type of response hurt your feelings?
• Do you feel that you’re connecting with the other person by sharing?
• Are you expressing your true needs?
• Do you already have a trusting relationship with the person you’re sharing with? Does the conversation topic seem appropriate for this level of trust?
• What are your expectations from the conversation? Are you taking the other person’s feelings and needs into account? Do you know and respect their boundaries?

Being vulnerable and using vulnerability are two quite different things. If the motivation for sharing is confusing or unclear, or if it seems that there are ulterior motives for someone’s apparent vulnerability, it can feel inauthentic or even manipulative to other people. Oversharing can end up being the complete opposite of genuine vulnerability and cause distrust, disconnection, and disengagement.

Instead of bringing people together, oversharing can do the complete opposite. It can feel uncomfortable for both sides. The person who overshares becomes exposed by revealing deeply personal experiences, information, or feelings with someone who isn’t capable of responding to their expectations.

Without the validation, understanding, and support they were looking for, they could end up feeling even more lonely and disconnected than before. In this case, their need for intimacy, deep connection, and belonging are not being met.

The person on the receiving end of oversharing is left baffled by the motivation and expectations of the person pouring out inappropriately intimate details about themselves. It’s hard to empathize with people when you’re suspicious about their motives or their behavior simply doesn’t correspond with the type of relationship you have.

What Are Some Signs Of Vulnerability?

People who overshare don’t usually get the reaction or response they were looking for. This can make them feel frustrated, hurt, annoyed, or even angry. Why does this happen? Why do some people feel entitled to a certain type of reaction and get aggressive if they don’t receive it?

The question to consider in this type of situation is how to be vulnerable without being needy. One of the things to keep in mind is that paying attention to and respecting other people’s boundaries makes all the difference. We don’t have the same comfort levels, so even though something may feel appropriate to you, it might not be to the other person.

People who overshare don’t just cross the line with others. By not establishing appropriate boundaries, they also fail to protect themselves and they forget about the essential benefit of vulnerability – empathy. By oversharing, they fail to empathize with others and consider the impact of their oversharing. This type of behavior pattern is not beneficial for either side.

Most people who tend to overshare may not even understand that they’re doing it or why. They might not have any bad or self-serving intentions; they could subconsciously be trying to make up for what they were missing as children and are still missing as adults who don’t healthily address their vulnerabilities. Just because we’ve grown up doesn’t mean that our brains and emotions have learned to overcome strong imprints of our unresolved childhood experiences and feelings.

Some of the most common signs of overly strong vulnerability include:

• Spending a lot of time imagining or expecting adverse outcomes in everyday life situations.
• Increased overall anxiety and avoidance behaviors.
• Constant feelings of stress and tension in relationships with others.
• Being worried about physical symptoms or illness.
• Avoiding any public exposure due to immense fear of being humiliated.
• Preparing for the worst-case scenario.

How Do You Know If You’re Being Overly Vulnerable?

Being overly vulnerable is usually described as being easily hurt. Since we’re all vulnerable and get hurt by various life circumstances, disappointments, or other people’s words and actions, it can be challenging to determine where to draw the line. None of us are perfectly equal in anything, and that includes vulnerability. So, what does ‘overly’ mean in this context? How can you tell that you’re more sensitive than others?

Some of these behaviors may point to increased vulnerability:

• Feeling intense fear that someone might discover your true feelings.
• Being afraid of the possibility that you’ll be rejected or abandoned if you show your true self.
• Not being able to share any personal information.
• Obsessing over your mistakes, not being able to forgive yourself and move past them.
• Feeling intense shame, fear, or grief.
• Not having healthy boundaries.
• Having unrealistic expectations.
• Closing off or isolating yourself from others makes you feel protected.
• Having negative thoughts about yourself and your capabilities.
• Avoiding certain everyday activities and social events.
• Frequently expecting negative outcomes.

Learn How To Be Vulnerable Without Being Needy And Open Yourself Up To New Possibilities With PIVOT

Understanding vulnerability and addressing the feelings and fears that keep you disconnected from others are only the initial steps toward accepting and loving yourself for who you genuinely are. This challenging task requires courage. it’s a struggle with feelings of not being good enough and fears of failure. Scary as it is, this is not a journey you have to go through alone. Experienced PIVOT coaches and relationship advocates can guide you along the way to help you embrace the uncertainty and allow yourself to take chances.

When you take risks and invest yourself without guarantees, you’re opening yourself up to new opportunities and the possibility of change. You can achieve self-authenticity by seeing yourself in a new light, and by changing your behavior, you also change how others see you and interact with you. In the small group setting of our Glass House workshops, we learn to be kind to ourselves and others and enrich connections and relationships with our authentic selves and our loved ones.

Many people try to numb or hide their vulnerability, to push it down and pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s no wonder that misconceptions about it are so widespread. Many people fear being vulnerable; sometimes, they’re ashamed of showing they need help, or they don’t like asking for it, to avoid the possibility of being turned down. Some will spend most of their lives living like this and pushing down all the scary or unpleasant emotions. However, not taking risks usually means missing the chance to experience joy, happiness, and love.

Avoiding vulnerability at all costs can lead to unhealthy behavior patterns and coping mechanisms like discharging pain by placing blame on others, pretending that our actions don’t affect other people, or turning the dissatisfaction toward ourselves and developing poor self-image and low self-esteem. Alternatively, if we take a chance, start listening to our emotions and allow ourselves to be seen by others as we truly are, this change of behavior can lead us to learn to truly listen and hear others too and become gentler to people around us.

Taking these steps and receiving positive reactions from others connects vulnerability and trust. It can help us feel gratitude, learn to love ourselves as we are, and bravely step out into the light with all our imperfections.

What Are Some Common Misconceptions Concerning Vulnerability?

If each of us keeps hiding our vulnerability from others and avoiding to acknowledge it, let alone talk about it, we may fall into one of the traps and common misconceptions that are perpetuated by the silence:

• Vulnerability is a weakness. Most western societies perpetuate the ideal of strength at any cost, and many of us have been taught that keeping our emotions to ourselves and projecting a picture of strength is mature behavior. Despite widespread cultural myths, vulnerability is not a weakness. In fact, sharing our emotions is very courageous, as it requires risk and inner strength.
• I am not vulnerable. Some of us may be putting up a bulletproof façade and maintaining an image of strong, independent, fearless individuals. This is also the result of fear and another myth – it’s easier to say we don’t need vulnerability in our lives than to expose ourselves to being hurt.
• Vulnerability is scary and uncomfortable. Being vulnerable means taking a risk, and that can certainly feel uncomfortable and scary. However, it’s not necessarily a negative thing. Instead, it’s our chance to grow and deepen relationships with people in our lives. 

Besides, vulnerability doesn’t include only dark emotions and bad memories. It can involve all kinds of emotions, no matter how big or small, and some of them can be related to common everyday events.

• You need trust to be vulnerable. It is often said that trust is the condition that makes it possible to open up and be vulnerable in front of someone. However, this is often false, as the possibility of connection exists in any type of genuine human interaction. It’s great when trust and vulnerability go hand in hand, yet one doesn’t guarantee the other.
• Only certain people are vulnerable. It’s a common misconception that certain people are vulnerable while others aren’t. This kind of thinking can even be damaging since it might make some people feel excluded, and the feeling of belonging is one of the most vital human needs. Being vulnerable is necessary and possible for everyone.
• Vulnerability means full disclosure. There is a clear distinction between vulnerability and full disclosure. Even though vulnerability does mean sharing a part of yourself with others, it doesn’t mean sharing absolutely everything with the world and revealing every single little detail or secret you ever had. We call this, transparency with discernment! 

Vulnerability is self-awareness and social awareness as well. Knowing what’s appropriate to share and what isn’t, particularly when forming new connections with people, is essential for understanding the core principles of becoming vulnerable.

• We can deal with everything on our own. Some people might go through most of their lives thinking that they don’t need to be vulnerable because they’re self-sufficient and there’s no need to express their feelings to others as they can deal with them on their own.

This can lead to loneliness and robbing yourself of feelings of connection and belonging. The strength people derive from the collective and the ability to communicate, plan, and work together is irreplaceable. People are biologically predisposed to depend on each other.

Is Vulnerability A Strength Or A Weakness?

Mental health professionals and therapists agree that vulnerability is definitely not a weakness. It might be easy or common to think so, particularly if we haven’t had a good role model or were influenced by inadequate parenting or distressing early life experiences. Some of us might have become scared of being vulnerable later in life after having gone through certain disappointments that made us overly cautious.

The feeling of shame and fear of failure are commonly associated with a tendency to isolate ourselves and hide our sincere feelings, thoughts, and needs from others. However, even though being vulnerable and showing it exposes us to great emotional risk and uncertainty, it has a very significant adaptive role. Finding the courage to be honest can lead to unexpected new experiences, changes, creativity, and innovation.

By surrendering to vulnerability and letting our guard down, we can finally allow ourselves to be truly seen as we are and feel accepted and loved for it. The feeling of not being worthy can slowly dissipate, and we can begin to form stronger and more meaningful connections. When we’re loved for who we truly are, we can finally experience a powerful sense of belonging and worthiness. However wonderful it feels to be accepted and loved by others, it’s even more important that we ourselves believe we’re worthy and loveable.

How Can I Begin To Appreciate My Vulnerability?

Learning to appreciate your vulnerability, despite viewing it as being a challenging process, is the best way to begin leaning into vulnerability. Trying to stifle it usually leads to feelings of low self-esteem, shame, loneliness, isolation, and, quite often, even deeper issues like depression and anxiety. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, we’re all vulnerable. That’s the way we’re born, and the only choice we have about it is how we’re going to shape those feelings. We get to decide if we’re going to make the most of them.

One of the main benefits of vulnerability is certainly empathy. Empathy helps us connect with other people by being able to understand how they feel because we understand how we feel. All human feelings, good or bad, are quite universal. Forming strong, open, deep connections with friends, family, or romantic partners is what makes embracing our vulnerability worthwhile.

If we manage to overcome our fear of failure, we’ll realize that vulnerability is essential for learning. Making mistakes, accepting them, and learning from them can lead to personal growth. By accepting that we’re not perfect and that there’s nothing wrong with that, we also accept that others aren’t either and that they also make mistakes and deserve to be forgiven and understood. This acceptance is a valuable opportunity for spiritual and emotional growth.

How To Build Trust And Connection By Accepting And Appreciating Your Vulnerability

Accepting vulnerability leads to forming more vital and more profound connections, both with our true selves and with other people in our lives. If you’re unsure where to start, PIVOT’s experienced coaches can guide you through this rewarding process step by step. Struggling with vulnerability expands our perception by teaching us to work on our flaws while risking judgment. Fighting the fear of being ridiculed or shamed helps us realize that, even though imperfect, we are worthy of love.

Immerse yourself in a life-changing experience of one of our Glass House retreats. Our intimate group workshops can help you brave through the fear. We can solidify our strengths and change how we perceive ourselves and others. As a result, we can grow both professionally and privately and become better friends, parents, and romantic partners.

Emotional vulnerability can be highly confusing, particularly if we’re used to thinking of it as a weakness. However, being vulnerable for many, leads to letting go of the false ideal of perfectionism. You might have heard it many times: “Perfect is the enemy of good.” Mainly because perfection doesn’t exist.

Trying to pursue it is a dead end, and instead of wasting your energy, maybe it’s time to find out what emotional vulnerability can teach you. If you allow yourself to explore your genuine, most profound feelings, insecurities, fears, and imperfections, you might discover new space for innovation, creativity, and change.

What Are The Different Types Of Vulnerability?

There are many aspects to all human beings; we’re friends, partners, children, parents, employees, and members of the community we live in. Vulnerability in each of these areas can emerge in slightly different ways, and dealing with them may require specific approaches.

• Vulnerability in relationships. Human beings have their own needs and expectations from romantic partners, friends, and family. However, the fear of judgment, abandonment, or rejection keeps us scared to express our true desires openly.
• Your mind and body can also be vulnerable and usually express themselves in ways we often misinterpret. Learn to notice and listen to what they’re trying to tell you. A lot of emotional or psychological stress can show up in the form of physical symptoms.
• Vulnerability in the workplace can be a particularly tricky one. You might be comparing yourself to a colleague and doubting your skills, capability, or knowledge. Of course, there’s more to learn. That goes for everyone, not just you.
• In your community. This type of vulnerability can significantly differ according to where you live. Still, the common denominator is the abundance of decisions you need to make each day to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Fear of the unknown and social anxiety are common signs of being overly vulnerable within a community. In those cases, you could try removing yourself from distressing situations and seeking professional help.

What Can Vulnerability Teach You?

Accepting vulnerability and fighting the urge to hide it as deeply as possible from everyone, including yourself, means you’re ready for change. So, what can vulnerability teach you?

• Accepting that you’re vulnerable takes humility. Just as everyone else makes mistakes and goes on with their lives, so do you. It doesn’t make us failures; it means we’re imperfect. 
• Creating a sense of worthiness and belonging. Instead of pushing down your insecurities and weaknesses, you can acknowledge them and learn to value yourself for everything you truly are. If you can love yourself as you are and feel worthy of love, other people will perceive it too. After all, you’re the one defining the standards.
• Being courageous. This means facing your fears, difficulties, danger, and pain. Vulnerability helps you take those risks repeatedly. The possibility of going through distressing experiences by being authentic and showing your vulnerabilities requires courage.
• Asking for help. None of us can do everything on our own, or the human species wouldn’t survive. Sometimes you’ll feel strong and self-sufficient, and when you don’t, remember there’s no shame in admitting you need help and seeking it out.
• Not turning off your emotions selectively. You need to feel both the good and the bad. Of course, there will be disappointments, but how else would you know what happiness feels like?
• Allowing yourself to be genuine and vulnerable to others. It can make you feel alive and bring unexpected joy and gratitude for learning that you’re worthy and loved. This realization can make you kinder to yourself and others.

Why Is Vulnerability Important For Emotional Growth?

Even if your fears and insecurities make you want to hide and put up a wall around them, you might find out that the walls you build also keep the good things from getting in. Don’t let them hinder your growth.

• Self-awareness is one of the most crucial factors determining emotional growth. Vulnerability can help you recognize harmful defense mechanisms and blind spots. For example, trying to avoid physical pain is something we instinctively do, and the same goes for emotional distress. If we learn to recognize these moments and change our behavior, we can create new habits and healthier behavior patterns.
• Allows your authenticity to shine through. Many of us present confident personalities that we want to be likable and pleasing to others. The very thought of letting that image crumble can seem terrifying. However, just as you need to trust people in your life to be genuine, they need the same from you. Let yourself be seen the way you truly are, and the right people will reveal themselves. It’s exhausting putting up a false façade. 
• Becoming the best version of yourself is a strong motivator for most of us. One of the best ways to achieve the peace necessary for realizing your full potential is to understand who you are and why you behave the way you do. When you identify your strengths and weaknesses, you will know what needs to be revealed, what can be improved, and what needs to be accepted.
• Mindfulness, or being fully present in the moment you’re experiencing, is crucial for developing empathy and recognizing all the emotional and social cues that can help you identify your own and other people’s feelings.
• Fosters new and more meaningful connections. If you allow people to see the real you, with all your imperfections and insecurities, and get positive feedback, it will make you value those people more, and vice versa.
• Vulnerability can also help you build a healthier mindset. This means that changing your perception can influence your mental health and well-being, improving your personal and professional life.
• It brings change and reveals new opportunities. Expressing your vulnerabilities simultaneously with your strengths creates genuine connections with people who can appreciate you for everything you are. You may find new and unexpected allies in people you haven’t been close with before.

Is There A Positive Correlation Between Vulnerability And Empathy?

After learning how to be vulnerable with yourself, you can begin building up the courage to feel uncomfortable in various situations and in front of other people, despite your instincts telling you to avoid this at all costs. However, allowing yourself to be vulnerable and recognize and express your deepest fears, emotions, and genuine thoughts builds self-awareness, mindfulness, and courage to relate to others. By doing this, we are experiencing empathy.

Empathy is one of the most valuable skills we can have. We can recognize and understand other people’s emotions because we know those same emotions within ourselves. Empathy is intricately connected to vulnerability because if we’re not in touch with our own emotions, we can’t have the ability to notice them in others.

When we learn to connect our emotions to specific events, behaviors, or circumstances, we can also recognize when other people are going through similar personal experiences. This allows us to understand each other and feel for each other. That way, by sharing our vulnerability with others, we build stronger connections and trust.

This is particularly important when it comes to people closest to us, our family, friends, and romantic partners. Empathy teaches us to listen to and connect with others, leading to emotional growth.

PIVOT Helps You Experience Emotional Growth By Being Vulnerable 

Vulnerability, as frightening and risky as it may seem, teaches us many lessons about ourselves and others. It helps us form healthier relationships and behavior patterns through honest communication. PIVOT’s experienced coaches can guide you through identifying and accepting your vulnerabilities.

Since empathy is one of the most valuable skills born out of vulnerability, small group workshops can provide an ideal setting for practicing mindfulness and awareness of your feelings and those of others. As a result, you can start your personal growth in one of our Glass House retreats, find new courage to express yourselves, and build healthier, trusting relationships.

Think of a kid throwing a temper tantrum for no apparent reason, or at least not one significant enough to cause such a reaction. The feelings of most adults can be just as overwhelming, and some adults’ use coping mechanisms that can boil down to “sweeping it under the rug.” These folks might’ve outgrown temper tantrums, yet the storms inside them can seem just as overwhelming.

Unlike most children, adults are capable of identifying and managing their emotions. This doesn’t mean merely controlling, suppressing, or hiding them. It means understanding our triggers or the underlying causes of our fears and other distressing feelings. It also means learning what vulnerability management is and then changing our behavior and thought patterns to create optimal conditions for learning to recognize and identify our emotions. That way, we can address the reasons behind them, and change our response and behavior accordingly.

What Is Emotional Regulation?

Emotional regulation encompasses various actions we undertake to control the expression of our feelings. This ability may involve analyzing or rethinking certain challenging situations to influence the intensity of distressing emotions like anxiety or anger. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we succeed in changing our feelings; we simply learn to hide some or all visible signs. And, hiding our emotions can be incredibly unhealthy.  

By learning to actually mitigate emotions that are hardest to control, like anger, anxiety, resentment, or deep sadness, we could prevent them from turning into more severe mental health issues. Instead of bottling them up, we can learn how to deal with them in healthier ways that will contribute to our personal well-being and more stable relationships with others.

How Can I Regulate My Emotions?

With a certain amount of practice, we can learn to influence our emotional state or regulate our feelings. Experts in this field use two terms to explain this process: down-regulation and up-regulation. Down-regulation means reducing the intensity of emotions, while up-regulation means amplifying them.

Each of these two ways is used in different circumstances. For example, people usually try to downregulate distressing emotions like sadness, anger, and fear by recalling pleasurable or amusing memories or ideas – thinking about something that makes them calm or happy. This method is used to distract oneself from anxiety or sadness.

In other types of situations, people need to upregulate their emotions or make them more intense. This is more common in situations of imminent danger or other kinds of challenging experiences that require a dose of adrenaline.

The main issue with this type of emotion control is that it’s usually done unconsciously to cope with demanding situations. And all of us do it many times a day. We use various emotion regulation strategies, some of which are harmless, while others can cause damage to our well-being and mental health. To adapt to the environment we live in, the stress we’re exposed to, and the countless emotions we feel throughout the day, we need to approach the situation more strategically.

Which Skills Are Essential For Emotional Management?

To be able to practice emotional management, we have to set up the conditions that allow us to apply positive coping skills and practice emotional and vulnerability management. This task will get easier over time if you make sure to set up the environment by:

• Taking care of your physical needs and paying attention to your physical symptoms. This includes getting enough sleep, eating healthy food, being physically active, and exercising. As a result, you will feel better and healthier, and regulating your mood will become less challenging.
• Understand your developmental parts so you can understand where the deregulating emotions come from. This is helpful so you can be aware of why the feelings are so intense.  Let’s say in your childhood you had a father who left you. This will most likely activate the abandonment button that was installed inside of you whenever your partner leaves or threatens to leave.  Your reaction can be heightened as a result. 
• Including activities that build a sense of achievement into your life. This can be any type of hobby or simply doing one single thing each day that makes you feel content. Sometimes our days are filled with multiple small moments we fail to notice or disregard as irrelevant. Pay attention to things that bring you joy, no matter how small they seem. If you start noticing them, their cumulative effect can increase your positivity.
• Focusing on changing thought patterns instead of changing feelings themselves. This could be a more challenging task. Most of us don’t realize that we can change the way we think about things. The truth is that we can change how we experience certain situations by deconstructing our feelings. That means analyzing what happened and how it led to us feeling a certain way.

For example, think about what made you feel that way when you’re upset. What did you think when the distressing event happened? Try to notice the correlation between your thinking and how those thoughts make you feel.

How Can I Manage My Vulnerability?

The best way to manage your emotions and, by extension, your vulnerability is by acknowledging what the meaning of vulnerability is and adopting certain behaviors that can help you identify your emotions and change the way you think about them and act on them. The essential skills to work on are:

• Making yourself slow down for a moment and take a breath. This creates a space between the trigger and your reaction.
• Taking a moment to notice what you’re feeling. Try to catch your physical reactions and locate the body parts that were ‘woken up’ by the activation. For example, do you feel like you can’t breathe? Is your heart racing? Is your stomach upset? Do you feel a sudden headache or tension in your neck? Are you clenching your fists or grinding your teeth? Our bodies react instinctively and by noticing what you feel and where you feel it you’ll be able to identify the type of emotion you’re experiencing.
• Naming the feeling. After taking the time to notice what you’re feeling, you can now identify it. What would you call the emotion you’re experiencing? Is it sadness, fear, anger, or disappointment? Is it a mixture of feelings? If you’re scared, what are you afraid of? If you can identify your emotions, you’ll also be better equipped to share them with others.
• Accepting it. All the emotions we feel are human and natural. Don’t be ashamed of them or try to resist them. It’s important to accept what you’re feeling and to know it’s perfectly valid. Try to have the same compassion for yourself as you would for others.
• Practicing mindfulness. This might sound confusing, however what it actually means is being aware of the moment and yourself within it. Try to pay attention to what’s happening inside and around you, and to be aware of it as an impartial observer, without judgment.

In time, you’ll be able to keep your composure in distressing situations and respond to them calmly without falling into the trap of overwhelming negative emotions and thought patterns.

Emotion Regulation And Change Behavior Patterns

Learning to understand your emotions and respond to them in a healthy manner is not an impossible task. However overwhelming it may feel in certain moments, emotion regulation and vulnerability management help us identify and understand our feelings, leading to well-being and personal growth. This also allows us to open up to others and share our authentic selves with them, helping us achieve mutual understanding, deeper connections, and solid, healthy relationships.

If you’re struggling to achieve meaningful connection and trust with your friends, family, or partner, allow yourself to escape the overwhelming stress of daily life and devote a few days to self-discovery in one of the intimate Glass House retreats. If you prefer to deal with your vulnerability and emotional management issues in private individual sessions, our experienced relationship advocates will guide you in the right direction and remain at your disposal whenever you need them.

We usually think we protect ourselves by not showing vulnerability. People can’t hurt us if they don’t know our weaknesses is a phrase many have expressed. However, to truly understand what vulnerability is and its impact on our emotional well-being and relationships, we must first explore why so many people are afraid of it.

Despite the persistent cliché that the fear of intimacy is typically a male issue, the truth is that women fear intimacy just as much as men. Even though both men and women may initially seem more attractive when they present themselves as mysterious and enigmatic, that usually doesn’t work in the long run. Reality eventually sets in. Healthy relationships require honesty and openness. Without them, all the challenges of lasting romantic partnerships or marriages can become unsurpassable obstacles.

This doesn’t mean you need to completely forget about having any boundaries. The types of relationships we have with people in our lives are significantly different. Setting healthy boundaries is equally important as being open and vulnerable as it protects us from getting into abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationships. Vulnerability doesn’t mean allowing ourselves to be manipulated by people who know precisely how to hurt us. So, all the more reason to understand what vulnerability means.

Is Vulnerability Bad?

Why do so many people feel instant unease at the very thought of vulnerability? Does it mean it’s bad if it feels scary and uncomfortable? There certainly are situations and people that would prove this point. Maybe bad experiences have already happened too many times to be able to expect anything else. Meaning, you opened up and shared how you really felt with a partner and it was weaponized against you.  Or you shared how you felt about a friend who hurt you directly to them and they ghosted you for it.  Many examples show how for some, being vulnerable and then hurt by it makes the concept of vulnerability confusing to many. At PIVOT we talk about transparency with discernment.  

It’s not uncommon for vulnerability to be marked as a weakness, even in early childhood, and those feelings become so deeply rooted in our subconsciousness that we feel such a strong urge to resist revealing our fragile emotions to anyone, even the people we’re closest with.

Ask yourself this: Who knows your deepest fears and what hurts you the most? How many people truly know you? You can even have great friends, long-term relationships, and even let people in up to a certain point. Still, your bare, most genuine selves remain buried deep, causing challenges you might not be aware of.

Can Vulnerability Improve My Relationship?

Allowing yourself to be completely truthful with important people in your life, like your family, close friends, and particularly your romantic partner, may feel like exposing all your weaknesses and giving them a chance to hurt you. However, think about all the times you wished someone was more open about their emotions. So many conflicts can be solved more easily if both sides share their true thoughts and feelings.

If you allow yourself to be open to this type of change, you might find that people in your life feel more confident to do the same. For example, in partner relationships, sharing your feelings, needs, and pain, and having your partner do the same might help you understand new perspectives and turn miscommunication and quarrels into seeing each other’s point of view and doing your best not to cause them any unnecessary heartache.

What Are The Positive Effects Of Vulnerability On Relationships?

One of the most apparent benefits of vulnerability in relationships begins by releasing the burden of all the hidden emotions and unspoken words you’ve been pushing down for years. This can make us deeply unhappy and resentful toward others. However, if you liberate your vulnerability, you liberate yourself to be a better friend, partner, or parent.

Romantic relationships particularly benefit from the intimacy and closeness that vulnerability can create. This is, of course, a two-way street. If your partner doesn’t seem ready to open up just yet, you can lead by example. Your openness may give them the initial feeling of control and allow them to show their own vulnerability.

Letting someone genuinely know you can deepen your relationship. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of your relationship and makes communication more accessible and straightforward. You will be able to understand why your partner acts in a certain way, what drives their reactions, and, more importantly, you will know how to be there for them when they truly need you. Hopefully, you’ll experience these positive effects too. The big question for you is, do you know yourself well enough to share all of what makes you, you? 

How Can I Be More Vulnerable In My Relationship?

You might be thinking that all this sounds great in theory, yet real life doesn’t work that way. Like many other complex tasks, this one also requires determination, persistence, and maybe even a leap of faith. The truth is that being vulnerable carries the risk of getting hurt. However, so do many other things you couldn’t imagine your life without.

Let’s look at steps you could take to slowly start building this habit, step by step, in a way that won’t overwhelm you. If building vulnerability in your relationship is a goal you strive for, this is how you could begin by:

• Being introspective. Getting to know yourself first is essential if you wish to let another person in. Explore your feelings and the reasons behind them. Many childhood or past life experiences could be the underlying issues affecting your current behavior towards your partner. Look for your emotional triggers and the way you respond to them. You might realize that you’ve been blaming your partner for things they have no control over. 
• Taking your time. Sharing your deepest feelings requires trust. Take it one step at a time and feel out the responses you get from your partner. Begin with revealing one thing you’d like to share.  Try not to emotionally bomb your partner with all that you have to say in one setting! As you start feeling safe and understood, you will be able to share more, and your partner will too. 
• Speaking up. Give your partner insight into significant moments while they’re happening. If they do or say something you’re uncomfortable with, let them know. If you’re the only one who knows that you’re hurt, how can you work on changing the behavior patterns that bother you? Be respectful when you speak-up.  Criticizing your partner won’t help.  
• Sharing fears. However scary it may feel to bare yourself like this, remember that shutting down can make you feel insecure and influence your reactions and behaviors in unhealthy ways that could send a wrong message to your partner.
• Expressing your needs. If you let your partner know what you need, you will allow them to decide how to respond and meet those needs. And, realistic expectations matter. 
• Not running from conflict. Instead, allow yourself to feel some discomfort. This will enable you to practice healthy communication and behavior patterns. Stand strong with an open heart and stay in the uncomfortableness of it all.  You WILL get through it the more you practice.

How To Achieve True Intimacy In Your Relationship By Learning To Show Vulnerability

If you’re not sure what actual vulnerability in your relationship is or how to influence it in a way that will improve your communication and intimacy, you’re not alone. This issue is a tough one for many people and learning to share your feelings, even the difficult or painful ones, does require courage. If you’re prepared to take this risk, know that it can bring incredible benefits to your relationship, PIVOT’s relationship advocates are there to guide you through this process. It’s important to remember that you’re not the only one feeling reluctant or even terrified of the prospect of showing your true self to other people. You’ll realize how many people battle these same issues by attending one of our small group workshops guided by experienced Glass House coaches. The first steps might be hard but deepening the connection with your partner is worth it.

As we grow up, most of us get a new perspective on specific events that happened during our childhoods and learn to see them in a new light with the wisdom and rational thinking that enables us to recognize the reasons behind certain emotions and behaviors.

However, for some people, certain childhood events carry substantial emotional burdens that are hard to let go of even when they understand the underlying causes of unpleasant emotions, leading to trouble with healing from developmental traumas. In some instances, including severe traumatic events, it’s also possible to be unaware of how those childhood emotions and fears shape us into and through adulthood.  Some people may find themselves fighting the wrong fight, needing “proof” that someone is trustworthy, feeling like it’s “never enough” and so on…

What Are The Signs And Types Of Childhood Trauma?

People who experience trauma as children may be able to overcome it with maturity, time, or professional help if needed. Others may not even be aware of how they were affected by childhood events. As a result, they could continue to suffer the consequences and carry negative feelings into adulthood. This is why it’s essential to recognize the signs of childhood trauma. It can be the first step toward healing and rebuilding relationships with yourself, others, and the world around you. If it is suppressed, then typically one may develop an avoidant style in relationships with others.  Avoid getting hurt, therefore, don’t get too close. 

When it comes to different types of childhood trauma, they range from neglect and lack of attention to causing physical harm to a child. In each case, the damage to a child’s emotional, mental, and physical health can be severe. The most serious examples of childhood trauma include:

• Abuse. Verbal, emotional, or physical abuse; sexual abuse or incest.
• Severe neglect or abandonment.
• Dysfunctional home life, parents fighting, domestic violence, or separation from a parent.
• Dysfunctional social environment, like school shootings, bullying, poverty, war, or racism.
• Death or illness of a loved one – parent, sibling, or other close people in a child’s life.
• Witnessing a death, suicide, or murder.
• A serious illness that isolates a child from friends, school, or other areas of their life.
• Accidents like car crashes, fires, and other sudden terrifying events.
• Natural disasters like earthquakes or floods that affect entire communities can be particularly distressing for a child and make them feel unsafe.

Any kind of violence or sudden disaster can be severely traumatic for a child, even when it doesn’t appear so at the time. Children may hide or suppress their emotions, primarily if they’ve been taught that expressing them is a sign of weakness.

Unsurprisingly the most common signs of childhood developmental trauma are:

• Lack of trust in other people.
• Mood swings and unstable emotions.
• Unfulfilling and toxic relationships.
• Anger and aggression.
• Substance use or other self-harming behavior.
• Attention and focus issues.

What Are The Potential Impacts Of Childhood Trauma?

All types of traumas cause inevitable damage to the person experiencing them. The extent to which traumatic events will affect someone will naturally depend on each person’s character, coping mechanisms, and ability to examine the events that lead to traumatization rationally. The consequences of traumatic events can last a lifetime, affecting a person mentally, physically, and socially.

Since children’s brains haven’t had the chance to develop fully, they’re primarily driven by emotions. As a result, a child lacks the capacity to look for reasons behind the traumatic events, which is why the impact of developmental trauma on a child is considerably more profound than on a grownup.

The physical effects of trauma can be just as severe as the emotional ones. The stress a child is subjected to can impair the immune system development, as well as the nervous system. This can significantly raise the risk of illness later in life, particularly chronic ones like:

• Asthma
• Diabetes
• Heart disease
• Pulmonary disease
• Stroke
• Autoimmune diseases
• Cancer.

As far as mental and emotional health is concerned, the most common consequences can include:

• Anxiety, panic attacks, or depression.
• Insomnia, nightmares, flashbacks, sleep problems.
• Lack of energy.
• Low self-esteem.
• Feelings of guilt or shame.
• Withdrawing from others.
• Inability to identify, control and express emotions.
• Intense reactions and anger control issues.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Obsessive or compulsive disorders.
• High irritability and stress levels.
• High-risk behaviors, substance use, or self-harm.

People exposed to complex trauma as children may become dissociated or disconnected from their sensory experiences and thoughts. As a result, they can lose their sense of self or even have trouble remembering certain parts of their lives.

Another critical aspect of childhood trauma is the tendency to affect the ability to form healthy relationships. For example, people who experience traumatic events in early life might suffer from trust issues and have problems interacting with people in a healthy way.

The fear children experience can make them believe that the world is a dangerous place and that people can’t be trusted. This fear can affect all their relationships and make it hard to form deep and meaningful friendships and healthy romantic relationships.

Can You Overcome Childhood Trauma?

Overcoming trauma can be difficult for some people because lasting brain changes make a much deeper imprint in early childhood. A child’s brain is not fully developed, so any traumatic experience can cause drastic alteration or lead to neurological or psychiatric pathology. In addition, various parts of the brain respond to terrifying events. As a result, affected areas become permanently altered, disrupting normal psychological and emotional development.

If these changes are quite severe, overcoming childhood trauma may require challenging and usually prolonged professional therapy. The main goal of such treatment is to understand the changes that have caused emotional and behavioral issues. Once the problems are identified, recovery can begin. This can be a long and challenging journey that may require significant effort and patience.  Know this – you can get help and change your adult patterns!  

How Do I Heal Childhood Traumas?

Healing from childhood trauma can be a lengthy process for many people. This is because all those negative emotions get seeded deep into the subconscious while your brain is still not fully formed. Even recognizing and identifying your issues is a huge step toward recovery.

Unfortunately, simply being aware of the reasons behind your emotional distress isn’t enough for it to go away. Instead, it’s necessary to adopt new, healthier thought patterns that will guide you to healthier behavior patterns and more meaningful relationships with people. PIVOT from habitual actions to healthy actions. 

However, the most important relationship you need to address is the one you have with yourself, your self-image, and your self-worth. And, really understand and differentiate between your developmental parts! This is certainly not an easy task, as you must process all the distressing emotions stuck in your mind and body all your life. Only after finding a way to beat the sadness, fear, shame, or anger can you learn to love yourself and truly open yourself to loving others.

The healing journey will take you through acknowledging the trauma and accepting that it’s not your fault and doesn’t determine who you are as a person. First, it’s necessary to stop suppressing your emotions and address them, as painful as they might be. You might realize they’re not as terrifying as they seemed buried deep down. As you reveal them to yourself and others, you can start to let go of the pain, guilt, and shame and allow yourself to be your true self – not perfect, yet free of fear.

How To Heal From Trauma With PIVOT Support And Guidance

If you’ve recognized that your childhood trauma experiences are affecting your life and relationships, you’ve already made a step toward healing. Addressing it and learning to think more positively about yourself and others is something you can practice and learn in our Glass House retreat workshops.

Practicing self-love with people on the same journey can feel liberating and help you find the strength you didn’t know you had before. However, if you don’t feel ready to open up in front of others, you can opt for private individual sessions with our expert coaches, who will guide you to healing every step of the way.

We’re all permanently affected by the family dynamics we experience in childhood and early life. Some of us can recognize where our emotional or behavioral issues come from. Sometimes we can pinpoint elements of our parents’ behavior that led to them. However, that awareness itself doesn’t help improve our negative emotions. Nobody’s a perfect parent, and while some might be better at it than others, there are also other factors to consider.

First of all, you might not be fully aware of the kind of childhood your own parents had. They could carry a lot of damage caused by their parents, and this is where the saying “Hurt people hurt people” is particularly evident. Your parents or grandparents may have endured emotional or physical pain and failed to learn how to cope with it in a healthy way. They may have passed it down to you through their behavior because it’s the only way they know.

Even if additional trauma isn’t present, intergenerational trauma can still be passed on. It may go back further than your parents or grandparents, reverberating across many generations, caused by many different events. As a result, it’s possible to experience and live with trauma symptoms and behavior patterns, struggling to recover from emotional trauma even though you personally didn’t experience a traumatic event yourself.

What Is Intergenerational Trauma?

Intergenerational trauma is the type of trauma that gets passed on from trauma survivors to their children or other descendants. It’s also known as secondary traumatization or historical trauma, when it refers to traumatic events related to racial, ethnic, or cultural oppression. Again, the historical context is essential here, whether it’s about family or more extensive community history.

Intergenerational trauma doesn’t have to be limited to parents or grandparents; it can go further down the family line. As a result, you might feel all the signs and symptoms of a traumatized person without even realizing where all the fear and other accompanying distressing emotions come from.

The point of a trauma response is to be adaptive. Unfortunately, it can turn into something severely harmful when it becomes ever-present in your life. If persistent feelings of high alertness, fear, and expecting danger sound familiar, this could be a sign of intergenerational trauma.

What Can Contribute To Intergenerational Trauma?

The range of life circumstances and hardships that can be passed on to one’s offspring in the form of intergenerational trauma is quite broad. It can include smaller groups of people, like one’s immediate family, or entire communities, like religious, racial, or national ones.

When it comes to family dynamics, the common factors that contribute to developing trauma and passing it on to the next generations include:

• Witnessing or experiencing verbal, physical, or sexual abuse.
• Emotional or physical neglect or abandonment, particularly in early life and childhood.
• Loss of a loved one, like the death of a parent or sibling.

However, there are also large-scale, traumatic historical events that affect entire communities. Their influence can transfer beyond the people that survived them. The list of traumatic events most commonly includes:

• Wars.
• Forced migration.
• Different types of oppression, like systemic racism or other types of discrimination.
• Ethnic cleansing or genocide.
• Cultural genocide.
• Enslavement.
• Separation of children from their families.
• Natural disasters.
• Lasting famine or poverty.
• Major global or national crises.

What Are The Signs And Symptoms Of Intergenerational Trauma?

If it feels like you’re having a more difficult time dealing with the usual life hardships than most people you know, you might be experiencing the effects of trauma. Recognizing the signs and symptoms of intergenerational trauma is particularly important as it may cause problems in your relationships with other people due to communication issues. It can also cause unresolved distress in your romantic relationships and affect your parenting style.

The most common signs that point to intergenerational trauma are a bit different than the common trauma symptoms and can significantly differ from case to case. In addition, they can sometimes be difficult to spot because they’re also typical for other mental health conditions like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, they usually include the following:

• Emotional numbness or having a tough time identifying and expressing feelings.
• A sense of detachment from your feelings and body.
• Heightened response to stress, not being able to control emotions.
• Feeling helpless and vulnerable.
• Low self-esteem, shame, guilt.
• Difficulty connecting with others, trusting them, and building healthy relationships.
• Feeling isolated.
• Risky behavior, substance use.
• Nightmares.
• Intrusive thoughts, thinking about death or suicide.

All these symptoms can severely affect your well-being. Regarding your mental health and sense of self, intergenerational trauma can cause considerable problems, particularly if you’re unaware of its origin. Only by identifying and addressing these feelings can you begin healing and minimizing the chances of passing them down to your children.

Can You Avoid Passing Such Trauma On?

You might not have experienced any trauma yourself. However, being informed about how it transfers and manifests can help you make sense of your feelings and behaviors and how you relate to other people and the environment you live in.

When someone experiences severe trauma, their DNA activates genes to help them survive. This is known as the fright, flight, or freeze response. These genes pass on to the next generations to prepare them for potential danger.

Those genes are meant to keep us safe, so the survival mode can be encoded in the family DNA and passed down to multiple generations. The downside is that it can cause constant fear and anticipation of danger. In addition, being stuck in this survival response can be highly stressful and harmful to one’s mental and physical health.

Recognizing and acknowledging the symptoms can make you aware of what you’re dealing with and what kind of help you might need to address your issues. You can minimize the chances of perpetuating the cycle of intergenerational trauma by being informed about the signs and the effects of trauma. That way, you can find appropriate expert guidance to help you change the way you think and respond to triggers.

How to Recover From Emotional Trauma And Minimize The Chances Of Passing It On

Healing from trauma requires adopting some healthier coping mechanisms, more positive thoughts, and behavior patterns. You can learn how to avoid triggers or respond to them in less harmful ways that won’t put pressure on yourself and your relationships with others. This is particularly important regarding the family you create, your romantic partner and your children. Our experienced relationship advocates can help you identify and address the issues that are causing the problems in private, individual sessions.

However, don’t forget that intergenerational trauma is not uncommon, and many other people are going through similar experiences. It might make you feel better to hear their stories and tackle the issues in one of our small group workshops guided by PIVOT coaches. Realizing that other people are facing these same challenges can create additional motivation and strength. You can learn how to cope with them and start healing – for your own well-being and that of your family and children.