Honesty, Vulnerability, and Opening Up
“How are you?”
I bet you can predict the answer.
That’s right. “I’m good! How are you?”
More often than not, that answer is a lie. A compulsive lie. But it’s fine because we’re just following the script, right? People expect a socially acceptable response. And who are they to understand, anyway?
No, I’m not condemning a friendly, “I’m good!” for anything besides the grammar (it should be, “I am well!”, but that’s besides the point). I do, though, hope to call attention to how quickly we dismiss our feelings and hardships and “bad days” for the sake of preserving our reputation, appearance, or ego. The emphasis we place on picking ourselves up, putting ourselves together, and slapping on a smile leads us to wrongly associate hardship—grief, anxiety, sorrow, insecurity, fear, depression, illness, etc.—with weakness.
But I’ve come to recognize the significant value in vulnerability–in asking for help from a trusted friend, family member, or adult. While isolating yourself may seem much easier, it will only leave you weary and helpless for trying to walk with broken bones and open wounds. Trust me when I say I know the eerie sense of comfort found behind the walls, within the fortress you’ve constructed around your broken heart. And trust me when I say there is no greater peace than surrendering and allowing yourself to depend on someone other than yourself.
You have a community of fallen, hurting, and imperfect people around you every single day. Everyone knows the fear of revealing our broken places, the dimly lit chambers of our tainted souls. Everyone shares the desire to let it all out, too, as well as the terrifying threat of appearing weak or dramatic. All of humanity suffers with us.
That’s precisely why we tend to look up to those who are honest about their personal lives, grow in relationships when this honesty is prioritized, and grow in our faith when we fall to our knees in the deepest of valleys. The key? Understand the universality of our brokenness, the dependent nature of the human heart. There is a reason why we find release in allowing ourselves to cry, to feel, to mourn—we let go of the notion that we must have our lives figured out, that we must know the answer, that we must avoid weakness at all costs.
Moreover, when others embrace vulnerability, we not only feel less alone in our hardships but also develop a deeper respect for those who have spoken openly and honestly about just how human they truly are. The right people will support you, cherish you, and stick with you. Think of how you would respond if a close friend or family member, after struggling silently in fear, mustered up the courage to ask you for help. I guarantee you would not turn away.
Pain is not foreign to mankind. If there is any common ground between two strangers, it must be pain. No, I don’t need you to tell me your life story when we pass each other in the hallway. But begin to pay attention to how often we equate anything less than, “I’m good” with a burdensome helplessness.
You’re not meant to deal with it on your own. You can’t. And that’s okay.