We live in an insane world of extremes. We shy away from concepts one week and the next they’re #trending. No wonder we struggle to maintain our values; to know what we stand for. From heroin chic to fit chick, alpha male to toxic masculinity, hustle and grind to least mode…it’s impossible to keep up.
Vulnerability is one such trend, which fortunately I came across due to necessity as opposed to popularity. My experiences with my own mental health have spanned almost 3 decades and the one thing that has kept me alive is my ability to ask for help. To push myself to communicate with those around me about how much pain I’m experiencing and how desperately I want to heal.
Vulnerability paves the way for deeper meaning in relationships. It’s an essential element in the quest to finding purpose and fulfilment. However, as quickly as it’s become a trend, it’s now a shortcut to 100 like and shares. It’s less about the authentic experience and more about the shock ‘bare-all’ factor. We’ve forgotten about context, about keeping some level of privacy and intimacy for our off-line life. Sharing is meant to be about enriching communication and relationships, not posting just for the sake of it on social media. The approval is short lived and does nothing to enhance our ability to communicate deeply
So next time you feel like exposing your life story, ask yourself what your why is? Do you want to connect and create or are you simply looking for validation? If the latter, how long since you sat down with a partner and connected on an intimate level? Social media approval is ultimately a vacant connection, so if you’re going to get vulnerable, do it right. Do the work, face to face and watch your relationships intensify like you’ve never imagined.