I’ve always been someone who wears their heart on their sleeve – I’ve told people my secrets, trusted them and been vulnerable with them. My mum used to say that this was a sure fire way of getting hurt – ‘don’t trust people too much, because they can use it against you’, she’d say.

In this day and age, more and more people are closing themselves off to avoid getting hurt. I get my mum’s point. There are some mean people who will exploit that kindness and vulnerability that you show. But for every reason not to confide in people and bare your soul, I think there’s a bunch of reasons why you should be vulnerable with others…

1) Closing yourself up can be lonely

There have been times where I have been hurt by other people, and I’ve closed myself off from love, friendship and intimacy. Yes, of course you protect yourself from being hurt. But you also shut yourself off from that warm feeling when someone makes you feel special. That moment when someone listens to you and doesn’t judge. Those moments are invaluable. It turns out that closing your heart off to love is just plain lonely. We should all feel proud of those scars we wear from being hurt, because it means that we were vulnerable enough to allow ourselves to get hurt. We were brave enough to open our heart to someone else. Being hurt sometimes is, I feel, infinitely better than feeling lonely all the time.

2) You give others permission to open up too

Have you ever had that feeling when someone confided in you about something, and you in turn felt able to confide in them? Human connection is so joyful because of these moments of vulnerability, but opening up is scary. There may be some people in your life who need you to set a good example. Imagine a situation where none of your friends told you anything embarrassing, shameful or scary. Chances are, you wouldn’t want to share anything back. Be that good influence and start off the practice of sharing with your friends to show that your friendship is a safe space and that you can confide in one another. You never know; that might have been the signal your friend was waiting for to finally be able to talk and get something off their chest – you could be saving someone from loneliness and fear!

3) You say ‘no’ to being fake

Being authentic in this day and age is so important. As a species, we are bombarded by fake things – through social media, we have learnt that people only show the best of themselves, and we’re deluded in to thinking that this is real life, and that showing the not-so-pretty bits is just weak. It’s time to break that cycle now! Let’s have those meaningful, weird, awkward connections with people to show that we’re all still human, we all have flaws and that no-one is perfect. Being authentic shows other people, and yourself, that we don’t have to live up to some ideal of the perfect life that we see on Instagram. We show the world that we are perfectly fine exactly the way we are, and by being authentic, we draw other people toward us like magnets.

How do you feel about being vulnerable? Are there any other good bits about being vulnerable? What have been your experiences?

C x