Vulnerability Does Not Equal Weakness

For most of my adult life, I believed that I should do everything I could to hide my intense emotions, my messy life experiences, and my struggle to find self-worth. At the very least, I should not mention these things publicly, or in professional spaces, or to people whose respect I wished to earn. I should hide what makes me a whole person and bring only a polished, cheerful, easy-to-manage exterior to my work. If I was failing to conceal the deeper, darker parts of who I am, then I was failing completely. To share my authentic self would be to show weakness; and as a woman, I needed to convey only confidence and strength. Feeling deeply and showing vulnerability was the antithesis of competence and success.

This false belief came to me through various trauma, through social conditioning, and through relationships with men who told me I was “playing the victim” when I expressed my feelings or shared that I was hurt or otherwise stood up for myself by asking for better from them. I learned, too, that hiding my true self was necessary to survive and even thrive in professional settings where men discounted my insights for being too emotional and my attempts to be assertive were framed as abrasive. I found that often, even my female peers or leaders, instead of empathizing with and supporting me, used their shared experiences to propagate the harmful narrative of the superwoman, who grits her teeth through pain, who does it all and doesn’t complain. I learned that acknowledging suffering was acceptable but only as long as you kept quiet about the details.

There are so many difficult parts of the human experience that are silenced or glossed over because they more typically belong to women. But suffering in silence facilitates shame and isolation and leads to more pain. And it doesn’t have to be that way. As I’ve aged and experienced growth through healing, I’ve begun to challenge the silencing of my experiences and those of other women. I’ve come to believe instead that courageous vulnerability and radical honesty are essential for societal expectations placed upon women to change; and that is the focus of my upcoming blog series for Social B. Creative.

Each month, I will share a personal experience, or a set of connected experiences, that has shaped me. My aim is to show how these experiences have actually helped develop my emotional intelligence, strengthen my leadership skills, and improve how I relate to the people I serve in a professional capacity. Beyond that, I hope to create a space of solidarity for others. Genuine human connection is built upon shared experiences, and for too long, women have been taught to hide theirs. Imagine what we could accomplish if we didn’t have to spend so much energy on quieting ourselves, if instead we were allowed, even encouraged, to bring our whole selves to the work that we do. It isn’t just possible to be vulnerable and a professional at the same time, it’s necessary, and this blog will be my intentional effort to embrace that endeavor.