Understanding Self and Vulnerability
With the recent events surrounding COVID-19, many of us are feeling a heightened sense of vulnerability. Not only are we vulnerable to the disease itself, many also harbor the stress of wondering if they are asymptomatic and may be spreading it unknowingly. This doesn’t even begin to cover the vulnerability that we feel with the high level of economic uncertainty. At the time of writing, the US unemployment rate is 13.3%, a marked increase from the low single digits it was just months ago.
Understanding of self is extremely important to be able to have a life filled with happiness. Brene Brown is a leading researcher examining how important being vulnerable is for our mental health. What she discovered through years of research, is that people who find happiness tend to have the capability to feel vulnerable. If you have never seen her TED Talk, I recommend you do (you can find it here). Since that TED talk, she has become a national best-selling author, with her book, Daring Greatly, selling over 1 million copies.
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection and the path to the feeling of worthiness. If it doesn’t feel vulnerable, the sharing is probably not constructive.”
– Brené Brown
Becoming self-aware and sharing your emotions
One of the first aspects of showing vulnerability is being able to share your emotions with those around you. Being able to tell someone when you are sad or depressed is hard. You have to open yourself up and that isn’t always easy. Especially given modern day society, where we are taught to bottle up our emotions and always answer “I am fine” when someone asks how you are.
Brown really focuses on how it’s important to become self-aware. We need to be able to look internally, understand our emotions and then share that with others. This will help form more intimate bonds with your friends and partners, as well as help you reduce stress and anxiety in your life.
The power of connection
One aspect of being human is that we form tight connections with those around us, whether that be through friendship or love. These connections are truly what gives meaning to our lives. Brown believes that shame is the fear of not having connections, which is underpinned by vulnerability. She believes that to make authentic connections one must have the courage to show their flaws and imperfections. Through showing your vulnerability and believing that you deserve love, you can find a greater sense of joy. This is hard for humans to do though as we tend to numb vulnerability to get away from it — this shows up in obesity, debt and other chronic health issues which are used as a way to escape. We then tend to blame others to make up for our lack of vulnerability as well according to Brown, “Blame is a way to discharge pain and discomfort”. Another incorrect notion humans have is we tend to believe that what we do doesn’t have a large impact on others, when, in fact, many actions we take do. When someone decides to lay off a department or outsource them, that can have profound effects on those employees.
The art of self
The true self is the reconciliation between the art of self and the act of self. Through becoming self-aware and exposing your vulnerability, one needs to become disciplined in the art of self. This is where you truly find out who you are, what your values are and what you want in life. You need a core set of values to guide yourself in this life, with those you will never truly be lost. Once you have defined those, work on determining what you want out of this life, you only get one after all. This is practicing the art of self, which needs to be married to the act of self. The act of self can loosely be defined as work you do to stay happy and become a better person, below you can find out specific acts you can carry out. Once you have combined these two you should be on the road to understanding your true self.
Establishing the act of self-care
Self-care has become massively popular recently. While Brown has focused on vulnerability and building connections, another important block of well-being is self-care. Deepak Chopra has been a big proponent of self-care. Below are some of the top self-care routines you can do to help your mental well-being:
1. Yoga: Has been shown to not only be helpful physically by helping lose weight and improve overall fitness. It is also helpful for mindful eating, allowing you to enjoy food more and also notice when you are full.
2. Being able forgive: It’s important to be able to forgive as it allows you to move on and stop harboring negative feelings.
3. Meditation: Meditation can be very powerful. It has been shown to rival the effects of anti depressants as well as change the volume of certain areas of the brain. Mindfulness meditation is easy to start as it can be as simple as focusing on your breathing, which can help reduce anxiety. To learn more techniques, see the link here.
4. Create a gratitude list: It can be hard at times to feel like you should be grateful for what is in your life. By taking the time to write what you are grateful for down, it will help you internalize those.
5. Unplug from the world once and a while: We are now constantly plugged into different stimuli, whether that be your phone, computer, or tablet. They can consume hours a day and unplugging can help you connect better with the world around you and give you a chance to mediate or reconnect with nature.
Eckhart Tolle, a famous spiritual author, has discussed the need to have good self-care as well. He believes that you need to be able to reconcile and understand yourself and that doing so can unleashing infinite possibilities.
Becoming a better person
Through combining the ability to be vulnerable with performing self-care, you can start a journey to becoming a better person. Fundamentally, we all want to be better, but few of us actually take the effort to become better or to understand that becoming better means something different to each person. We are not destined to become what our genes say we will. Joe Dispenza authored a book titled, “Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself”, where he discusses how you can improve who you are. He combines the fields of biology, neuroscience and genetics to demystify what is truly possible. In his book, he takes the reader through a step by step process to allow them to improve their lives.
While these are challenging and anxiety provoking times, it’s important to focus on self-care and forming genuine relationships through being vulnerable. Through being more authentic and in tune with yourself, you will live a more rewarding life.
