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| Book cover for "Daring Greatly" |
I read Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown. It's about the importance of "being vulnerable." This means things like: Sharing your feelings with other people, instead of pretending that you always have everything under control. Trying new things, rather than avoiding this because of fear of failure. Stop being a perfectionist- which is defined as believing that you need to do everything perfectly, because if people see you as less than perfect, you believe it means you are worthless. As leaders, cultivating a culture (at work, school, in a family, etc) where people are not shamed or criticized for making mistakes- this way, it is easier for people to learn from their mistakes and do better.
This is great. Definitely recommend this book if you want to learn more about shame and vulnerability. For myself, though, I felt like I already understood a lot of this. And there was something that was bothering me as I was reading: Does "vulnerability" mean just letting people see your real, raw emotions? Like just letting anyone see that? Is that a good thing? No, I don't think that's a good thing- I believe in boundaries instead.
In my experience in the world of evangelical Christianity, we were encouraged to "be vulnerable." That meant that sometimes, in group settings, we were supposed to talk to each other about our real feelings and struggles and what we felt God might be telling us. To tell that to the other Christians, even though it might be embarrassing.
"Being vulnerable" was held up as a good thing, but we weren't really given any guidance on what it meant exactly, and what the limits should be. What healthy boundaries should be.
Also, when I started blogging, I didn't really have a good sense of what personal things to post about and what not to. I have kind of figured this out gradually from experience.
And, eventually, I came across the concept of boundaries. A framework where I'm responsible for my own feelings, and I choose how to share with other people. I should make these choices by considering what exactly I'm hoping to get from the interaction, understanding my own emotional needs, predicting what will happen as a result of the personal sharing, etc. (The "boundaries" way of viewing interpersonal interactions covers a lot of other things besides that, but I just mention these parts because they are related to sharing personal details with people.)
So anyway, I'm reading "Daring Greatly," about how vulnerability is so great, and we should let people see our feelings and all that, and I'm like... uh but what about boundaries? I would like to carefully decide what to share and when, and it should be based on how much I trust the people I'm sharing with.
Well, great news, "Daring Greatly" talks about this! It's not all just encouraging us to "be vulnerable"- there is also advice in here on how to decide what to share in what situation.
Page 159 defines a kind of oversharing called "floodlighting":
To understand floodlighting, we have to see that the intentions behind this kind of sharing are multifaceted and often include some combination of soothing one's pain, testing the loyalty and tolerance in a relationship, and/or hot-wiring a new connection ("We've only known each other for a couple of weeks, but I'm going to share this and we'll be BFFs now"). Unfortunately for all of us who've done this (and I include myself in this group), the response is normally the opposite of what we're looking for: People recoil and shut down, compounding our shame and disconnection. You can't use vulnerability to discharge your own discomfort, or as a tolerance barometer in a relationship ("I'll share this and see if you stick around") or to fast-forward a relationship-- it just won't cooperate.
Yeah, I think it's a red flag if the reason you're sharing personal details about your life is that you are hoping for some response that will meet your emotional needs. I'm thinking about "vagueposting" for example- when you are experiencing negative emotions, and so you go on social media and write about it, in a way that nobody who reads it will be able to actually understand the situation. Why do people do this? I think it's because they are dealing with difficult emotions and they want support, and they want people on the internet to respond by giving them that emotional support. But when you do this, you're not consciously thinking that- if you were, then you would realize it doesn't make sense to expect randos on the internet to reply in a way that meets your emotional needs. So I think it's really important to recognize what your emotional needs are, and predict whether you're going to get those needs met through the actions you are taking. Predict what will happen if you "vaguepost", realize that it won't get you the result you want, and then don't do it.
From page 160:
When it comes to vulnerability, connectivity means sharing our stories with people who have earned the right to hear them-- people with whom we've cultivated relationships that can bear the weight of our story. Is there trust? Is there mutual empathy? Is there reciprocal sharing? Can we ask for what we need? These are the crucial connection questions. [italics in original]
Agree!
And I want to quote this long section from pages 161 to 163, because it is very good:
Sometimes we're not even aware that we're oversharing as armor. We can purge our vulnerability or our shame stories out of total desperation to be heard. We blurt out something that is causing us immense pain because we can't bear the thought of holding it in for one more second. Our intentions may not be purging or blurting to armor ourselves or push others away, but that's the exact outcome of our behaviors. Whether we're on the purging end or the receiving end of this experience, self-compassion is critical. We have to give ourselves a break when we share too much too soon, and we have to practice self-kindness when we feel like we weren't able to hold space for someone who hit us with the floodlight. Judgment exacerbates disconnection.
Hearing this, sometimes people ask me how I decide what to share and how to share it when it comes to my own work. I share a lot of myself in my work, after all, and I certainly haven't cultivated trusting relationships with all of you or all of the people in the audiences where I speak. It's an important question, and the answer is that I don't tell stories or share vulnerabilities with the public until I've worked through them with the people I love. I have my own boundaries around what I share and what I don't share and I stay mindful of my intentions.
First, I only share stories or experiences that I've worked through and feel that I can share from solid ground. I don't share what I define as "intimate" stories, nor do I share stories that are fresh wounds. I did that once or twice early in my career and it was pretty terrible. There's nothing like staring into an audience of a thousand people who are all giving you the floodlight look.
Second, I follow the rule that I learned in my graduate social work training. Sharing yourself to teach or move a process forward can be healthy and effective, but disclosing information as a way to work through your personal stuff is inappropriate and unethical. Last, I only share when I have no unmet needs that I'm trying to fill. I firmly believe that being vulnerable with a larger audience is only a good idea if the healing is tied to the sharing, not to the expectations I might have for the response I get.
When I ask other people who share their stories through blogs, books, and public speaking about this, it turns out that they are very similar in their approaches and intentions. I don't want the fear of floodlighting to stop anyone from sharing their struggles with the world, but being mindful about what, why, and how we share is important when the context is a larger public. We're all grateful for people who write and speak in ways that help us remember that we're not alone.
If you recognize yourself in this shield, this checklist might help:
Why am I sharing this?
What outcome am I hoping for?
What emotions am I experiencing?
Do my intentions align with my values?
Is there an outcome, response, or lack of a response that will hurt my feelings?
Is this sharing in the service of a connection?
Am I genuinely asking the people in my life for what I need?
Yes, I agree with all of this. When I blog about something that happened in my personal life, I don't publish it right away- I wait till I've figured out how I want to tell the story. Our lives are a chaotic data set of experiences, thoughts, and feelings, and we compress them down into stories. Whatever initial feelings you have about something may be very different from what you eventually decide is a good idea to share publicly.
As readers, you don't care when specifically it happened, so this is fine.
The big exception to this is when I was in the Shanghai lockdown, and I live-blogged it. That's not the kind of writing I like to do- like, literally experiencing the trauma and writing about it publicly in real time. (2 and a half months, you guys.) But I'm glad I wrote those posts, because I was living in an actual historical event, a developing news story that you could read about on all the major news sites. It was important to keep records, for history's sake. I'm not gonna go back and read those posts, because it was so bad. I have no idea what I wrote. You are all welcome to read them though.
And, as Brené Brown says, when you share something publicly, it shouldn't be an attempt to elicit some specific kind of response that will meet your emotional needs. Typically, I write about things for the purpose of making a point, like "I learned something important from this experience, here it is" or "I want to talk about what happened to me, to help anyone out there who might have the same problems." Not like, you are emotionally dependent on random strangers on the internet to respond. No, don't do that.
The thing is, though, "Daring Greatly" is all about how "vulnerability" is such a good thing, and I agree with what Brown says in this book, but I wouldn't call this concept "vulnerability." To me, vulnerability sounds like being in a position where you are helpless and people can hurt you, in a way that's out of your control. My advice is, don't do that. Brown isn't saying to do that, though. Her point is more about how it's not emotionally healthy to present a mask to everyone, to pretend that we are perfect and we never have any problems, never fail at anything, never need help. Instead, share your emotional problems with people you love and trust. And don't be held back by the fear of strangers seeing you get things wrong or fail at something. Take risks, knowing that sometimes you will fail and strangers will see it and that's okay, that's just part of life.
Yeah, it's true that when you share your emotional problems with people you love and trust, they might respond in a way that's hurtful to you. But you minimize the probability of this happening by specifically choosing people that you love and trust. You can never get that probability to 0, though- and that's why this book calls it "vulnerability" and says it's difficult and scary.
Sure, there's the uncertainty of not knowing how they'll respond, and that can be scary- but you go about it in a wise way, by picking someone you already have a trusting relationship with. Not in a vulnerable way, as I would define it.
And about doing things in public, where strangers might see you fail: The key is to be comfortable in your own skin, to believe it's fine if you fail sometimes, or do something embarrassing, because it happens to everyone. If people want to make fun of you for it, that's really their problem and not yours. Okay, I'm oversimplifying it, because it truly can be hurtful when you do something embarrassing and people mock you. But the point is, know that you might make mistakes sometimes, and that's fine, it's not the end of the world.
Long ago, I was involved in projects and planning events where a huge part of my identity and emotions was tied to the success of the event. Don't do this! Have a realistic idea of what your expectations and your emotions are.
So yeah, you should do things even though they could potentially let people hurt your feelings, but in a way that you know what you're doing and you know the risks. I don't think "vulnerability" is the right word for this, but that's the word Brown uses.
I guess this is a case where boundaries and vulnerability are both important, and people may be coming from a background that overemphasized one of them, and so they need to hear about the other one. Vulnerability says "it's not good to be so terrified of getting your feelings hurt that you never share your feelings with anyone or let people see you doing something you're not good at." Boundaries says "there are things that belong to you- your feelings, etc- and you are not required to share those with other people."
The important thing is to have a realistic view of yourself, your emotions, and what you want.
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Related:
From "Virtues Morality" To "Boundaries Morality"
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