“Walls don't fall without effort.”
―
Neal Shusterman,
Bruiser
Would you want to be Superman if Kryptonite didn’t exist? You'd be invulnerable to any physical pain. But it'd be even better to not feel any emotional pain. I think it’s
funny that the easiest things for people to do are the most destructive. We
think that by emotionally distancing ourselves, we’ll protect ourselves from
pain and make ourselves stronger. We would never have to worry about getting hurt ever
again. Pain sucks. It’s difficult and hard to bear. The most natural thing to
do is find ways to push it away and get rid of it. The hardest thing to do is
to confront it and overcome it. If it was a healthy choice, I would rather not
deal with anything difficult rather than go through the incredible discomfort of
confronting it.
Our deepest
craving is the need for connection. In Erich Fromm’s book, “The Art of Loving,”
he explains that awareness of human separation is our deepest suffering and
that we all search for “oneness” or “reunion by love.” He says, “The deepest need of man, then, is
the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness.” But
because this desire is so great, then the fear of not obtaining this is just as
powerful. This fear manifests itself in countless ways that almost always come
down to building up walls and defenses and pushing others away. I have a friend
who goes through periods of time where he emotionally shuts down and stops
caring about anyone, because he fears being uncared for. I have another friend
who greatly struggles with verbalizing her true feelings about people she
likes, because she’s afraid of it becoming real. If it’s not real, then there’s
nothing to lose. And for me, I built walls designed to selectively let people
into my life and heart, but the problem is how much love I keep out.
It all
bottles down to fear of separation, of being left disconnected and alone. And we believe that if we choose to be alone, choose to be the one who rejects and pushes away others, then it'll hurt less. Leon Seltzer, Ph.D, explains that we fear being unworthy,
disapproved of, rejected, misunderstood, being unwanted, uncared for, and
unloved. We fear being devalued, discounted, and betrayed. We fear being inadequate,
incompetent, unacceptable, cowardly, humiliated, weak, powerless, underserving,
etc. The list is very long. Seltzer says that if we were to simply be vulnerable and
open, “we don't trust that others (or our "significant" other) will… safeguard
or validate our vulnerability.” That distrust comes from experience and is the
reason for all the walls, distance, and emotional shut downs. You’ve been hurt
in the past, thus you can be hurt again in the same way, but you want to
protect yourself from letting that happen again.
Galit Breen
further explains that our walls are built to control what happens next. They
are a defense mechanism in which you believe, “If I cut you out of my life or
deem our relationship not "real," you can't hurt me.” She wants
people to understand that these walls come from a legitimate place, but when
you put them up, you're acting like a person that you once were. You are not the
same person who got hurt by that person that time ago. You’re a new person able
to react differently to new people and a new situation.
The problem
with walls is that you are cutting off your connection with other people. Brene
Brown, a vulnerability researcher, says that “connection is why we’re here,”
which is very in line with what Fromm believes. Brown adds, “For connection to
happen, we have to let ourselves be seen, be really seen.” We have to be
vulnerable. How scary. Why would anyone who has been hurt before put themselves
in a situation to be hurt again? It’s illogical, right?
Well, as it
turns out, Brown found that those who already practice vulnerability have a
few things in common. They have a sense of worthiness, love, and belonging.
They believe they are worthy of love, so they freely love and allow themselves
to be loved. They also have a sense of courage to be who they are, imperfect and
flawed. They have compassion for themselves and others, and are authentic by
being themselves rather than what they think others want them to be. These
people fully embrace vulnerability and believe that being vulnerable is
completely necessary to life. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not excruciating
either.
As
empowering and healthy as vulnerability is, most people see it as a weakness
instead of a strength. Brown has found that there are symptoms for those who
lack the tolerance for vulnerability. They have foreboding joy, which means
whenever you reach peak happiness or bliss, you soon after become scared of
something bad happening that will ruin it. These people choose disappointment
as a lifestyle, because it’s easier to live disappointed than to feel
disappointed after every unmet hope and expectation. They go through low grade
disconnection, in which they go through the motions of life without allowing
themselves to appreciate it and be happy. They strive for perfection, believing
that if life is perfect, how can anything go wrong? They lack faith by trying to
make everything that’s uncertain certain.
Mostly
importantly, people who are scared of vulnerability numb it out. The problem
with numbing is that you can’t do it selectively, because you’ll end up numbing
everything. Brown says that vulnerability is at the core of shame, fear, and
our struggle for worthiness, but it’s also the birth place for joy, creativity,
belonging, and love. When you try to block off fear, shame, and other negative
emotions, you are also blocking out joy and love. “If vulnerability is a sharp
edge, there may be nothing sharper than joy, to let yourself soften into loving
someone, to care about something passionately,” says Brown.
So I guess
the scariest thing about being vulnerable is allowing yourself to be happy,
loved, and loving. It makes sense in a stupid logical way. If you are never
truly happy, then it can never be taken away from you. If you never love
someone, then you don’t have to fear their rejection or the pain they can cause
you. It’s safe. It’s not safe to allow yourself to be brought so high with joy
and love and belonging, to just accept and appreciate it, because what if
something bad happens? The worst pain is to have experienced it and then losing it, fearing that it will never return.
That’s the
risk of having something good, because you’ll constantly fear losing it. I know
I get terrified of letting myself have happiness and love, because of how many
times I’ve lost it and how much it hurt each time. It’s not easy to face that
much pain, and to take the risk of knowing it will happen again. But then I
think of a story my mom sometimes tells me. She said that when I was little,
she told me, “Everything you love is going to hurt you.” She detailed that
losing my favorite blanket would hurt me, losing my doll would hurt me, and
then went on to say that one day she and my dad will hurt me. Further, one day
I will hurt them. At such a young age, I couldn’t believe her and I told her I
would never hurt her, to which she responded, “But you will. Because that’s
just what happens when you love something. But that doesn’t mean you stop
loving.”
It means
nothing to just say, “Take a risk. Don’t be afraid of love or letting anyone
close to you.” I get told that kind of thing a lot, and I always respond with, “Easier
said than done.” People trust experience. If you’ve been hurt before, you’ll be
hurt again. But then I guess you have two options: close off and protect
yourself, or be vulnerable, open to pain and love again. One is undoubtedly easier
than the other, but one will undoubtedly bring you a much more fulfilled life.
If you
choose to be vulnerable, there are ways to practice that, just as long as you
understand that it’s a constant choice. Brown advises to let ourselves be
deeply seen, and love with your whole heart even though there’s no guarantee of it being reciprocated.
Do this by practicing gratitude and joy. Seltzer adds that the strength to be
vulnerable comes with the ability to self-validate and self-soothe. When we
self-validate, we are “at peace with our flaws and limitations, we don't judge
ourselves according to rigid, perfectionist ideals.” This doesn’t mean we
justify our mistakes; it means that we admit there are still things to work on.
Self-soothing is, “Feeling that we possess the emotional strength to quiet our
temporarily jangled nerves, we don't need to flee from the situation . . . or
ourselves.”
Choosing to
live with vulnerability is not the easy choice. It’s actually the more painful
one. But it is a necessary one. The alternative is to choose a life without
love and connectedness, which I think is far worse than any pain love can
bring. Life will hurt you. The people you love will hurt you. You will hurt the
people you love. But be open and love anyway.
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior
motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and
some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy
overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be
enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
-credited to Mother Theresa
Sources:
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