In relationships, being weak is the act of displaying somebody precisely who you might be and the way you are feeling with out disguise, bravado, or ego defenses, exposing your self to the opportunity of harm or rejection.
“Being weak means we make a acutely aware resolution to not conceal ourselves,” explains licensed {couples} therapist Alicia Muñoz, LPC. “That is dangerous as a result of we won’t management how others will reply to us. It means others see who we actually are, and if they are not capable of take us in, or respect our complexity, and so they choose or reject us, it hurts deeply.”
To assist perceive what vulnerability seems to be like in observe, Muñoz presents the instance of how infants deal with feelings:
“Being weak with somebody means risking being your true self. For infants, that is straightforward. They’re effortlessly themselves. They really feel unhappy and so they cry. They really feel blissful and so they smile. They expertise ache and so they flinch, gasp, or whimper. They’re afraid and so they search soothing and luxury. Infants have not but realized to cover themselves or what they really feel. As our brains get extra refined, and we expertise losses and disappointments, and develop a way of ourselves as separate from others, we study to current ourselves to the world the best way we wish to be perceived. We study to cover ourselves. Once we really feel unhappy, we chuckle. Once we really feel scared, we act detached. Once we really feel jealous, we inform folks we’re blissful for them.”
As Muñoz factors out, folks start to wrestle with vulnerability as a result of they worry getting harm—sometimes within the type of different folks’s rejection, judgment, or betrayal. We could start to placed on a courageous face, act detached, suppress feelings, or step into a job meant to guard ourselves from these dangers.
“The irony is, once we do that, we find yourself robbing ourselves of the intimacy, connection, group, and love of the individuals who have the bandwidth and capability to take us in as we’re,” she says.
