Getting Comfortable with Vulnerability in Relationships

Dear Sweet Souls,

It’s funny how one word can bring up so many thoughts and feelings. My word of the month seems to be ‘vulnerability’… It’s nothing new for me, or for Isabelle Moon. I have explored how to define vulnerability before. I spoke to friends about claiming it as a superpower, I’ve even spoken about how exploring vulnerability can help us to embrace ourselves. But it seems like there’s still so much more to deep dive into.

One thing that I’ve been thinking about lately is how vulnerability factors into our relationships. There’s nothing more vulnerable than presenting our heart to another human being, with all its quirks and quarks. Giving someone access to our inner workings can be tricky, especially because we never quite know how it’s going to go.

Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye with When Love Arrives, a lovely piece on love in its many forms coming and going throughout the years.

Although the context of the love talked above is of the romantic kind, I like to think that it applies to love in general, both platonic and romantic. Finding, keeping, and growing connections isn’t the easiest thing. It requires a degree of vulnerability that we don’t always allow ourselves. Being vulnerable with ourself is hard enough, being vulnerable with someone else means we’re opening ourselves to the unknown.

I want to share with you this article from Psychology Today on how vulnerability can strengthen our relationships. We think about vulnerability through our own eyes. How as individuals we are taxed to show our soft underbelly where we are most easily hurt. But in relationships, understanding and embracing vulnerability helps us to create a safe space for our loved ones to be. Which in return creates a place for us to also exist as our truest selves.

Vulnerability is where mutual love and understanding can flourish. Far from being a deterrent, or an additional wall to scale, vulnerability ends up being an important factor in growing relationships.

While being vulnerable can feel uncomfortable and messy, I do think it’s one way I can challenge myself to engage with the world around me, to create better bridges from my heart to another.

Do you find vulnerability hard? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, it’s always a pleasure to listen to how other people think and feel on topics that I find myself pondering.

There are so many amazing humans we have the opportunity to learn and grown with, some you may already have nestled safely in your heart, and some still out there, roaming the earth, waiting for that first “hello”.

And it’s those precious people who can remind us that it’s safe to be vulnerable, and doing so is the road to deeper love.

Contemplating vulnerability,

Meghan Currie

Founder of Isabelle Moon