The Risk and Reward of Vulnerability

Just the other day I was working at the local wine shop where I currently have a part-time job. As I was serving a group of guests I began to realize that one of the women in the group seemed quite familiar. After some time I became fairly certain that I knew her from the church I used to attend. People from my old Christian life cause me the greatest anxiety, because unfortunately Christians are often the most judgmental of all towards transgender people. Nonetheless I felt that I needed to say something to her, because if she had also recognized me I didn’t want to leave her with the feeling that I was too embarrassed or ashamed to talk to her. I approached her as her group left and inquired if she was indeed S_.  She affirmed that she was and then said she thought she had recognized me as well. I told her that she had known me in my former identity and that I had been on a personal journey since we had last spoken. We had only a brief moment as her group was leaving, but she spoke kind, affirming words and embraced me before departing. It was another in a seemingly endless moments of vulnerability. The old me would have chosen to avoid taking the risk. Why bother, since we weren’t exactly close friends anyway? But avoiding the risk would also have meant choosing to let shame and fear dictate my behavior, and I do not want to do that any longer.

I spent my life to this point hiding from myself and from others. I guarded myself from the possibility of vulnerability, because I feared what that might reveal about myself, or others. At the same time I longed for the deeper connection that comes only through making oneself vulnerable. Most of us protect ourselves from vulnerability to some extent, but when you harbor a secret identity that you cannot imagine anyone accepting, that you cannot even accept yourself, you protect yourself even more. And in the process you cut yourself off from real relationship. I see now how I starved my marriage of life in part because of this fear of vulnerability.

Wrestling with the ideas presented by Brené Brown released me to face the barriers that I had erected against vulnerability. By guarding myself against it I stifled my emotional life, my creativity and, ultimately, my own self-acceptance. “Vulnerability,” she writes, "is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity.” As I walked through my journey to self-acceptance, I had to come to terms with this fear in order to release myself to live fully and freely. As I’ve written, dance helped immensely in this, because it was the first place I ever really allowed myself to openly acknowledge my imperfections, to undertake something knowing that I couldn’t ace it. Because I had the good fortune to find the studio I did, I danced in an environment where being vulnerable did not lead to people wounding me. No one ever shamed me for my imperfections. No one ever said I was not enough (well, except for myself – and I still at times struggle to get that message out of my mind.) Instead I found that I was enough, that simply showing up and doing my best was rewarded with affirmation and encouragement, which provides amazing motivation to keep pushing on.

I’ve mentioned in an earlier post how I literally trembled with fear when I first opened my inner secret to another person. I made myself vulnerable and with it took a huge risk that she would wound me. Every single time I open up to another person after that it still takes a huge amount of courage, because each new revelation is a moment of great vulnerability. I never know how people will respond. Over time I have become more comfortable and confident, especially now that I’m not really revealing anything that is not already apparent on the surface, but there is still usually a moment of anxiety when I move beyond an initial introduction with a new friend, or especially when I meet someone who knew me in my former identity and has not been aware of the journey I’ve been on.  Perhaps we all feel a bit of this when we meet someone new, but when your core identity is such that society still has very mixed, even hostile feelings about you, the level of anxiety is much greater. In the end whether you are trans- or cisgender, opening yourself to another person is a risk, an act of vulnerability. It’s a risk worth taking though.

I wonder now how many opportunities for connection I have missed in life because I lacked the courage to be vulnerable. I don’t think it means that we have to open everything about ourselves to everyone we meet. For me it means that when I meet someone I don’t hide myself. I don’t shy away from the fact that I am a transgender woman. I don’t let shame determine my actions or my words. If I find that I want to build a deeper, stronger connection with a person, then I invite them into my life by sharing more about who I am, about the journey I am on, about the emotions I experience – all of them. This is what living authentically means to me. If you’re my friend, I’m not going to hide from you. I’m not going to pretend that everything is okay when it’s not. If you ask how I’m doing, you’ll hear more than “fine.” I’m going to let you inside because that’s the real me. It’s a risk, because you may choose to reject me. You may use what you learn about me to wound me. I choose to take that risk, because the deep, powerful bond of connection with others is worth the risk. I only wish I had learned this so much earlier in life. And to the extent that my friends allow me, I choose to enter into their lives wholeheartedly, accepting who they are in all its imperfect glory. I’m not going to be the perfect friend, but I’m going to be there for my friends, because the risk of being vulnerable with one another is worth the reward of the connection we can make.