Vulnerable means to show yourself to others completely and utterly without holding back for fear of rejection or judgment. It means to say “here I am, flesh and bones. Here are my strengths, here are my weaknesses, here is where I stand-take it or leave it”
Despite what most dating “gurus” would say, it is very attractive to be vulnerable. The reason it doesn’t work for them is because they draw in low self esteem women who only want guys who treat them badly-like the way they treat themselves.
In order for you to be vulnerable with someone you must first be able to be completely honest with yourself.
With all the self-help, reprogrammed, affirmation driven minds out there in the dating community honesty tends fall off to the wayside.
Every issue that comes to the surface is quickly repressed with an affirmation or two-it’s a positive way of telling yourself to shut up. Repression leads to many unhealthy behaviors.
*note: Affirmations aren’t bad in of themselves just the way most people use them For vulnerability to be an attractive quality there must be a couple things inline:
1. Love and accept every part of yourself
2. Not being needy and looking to see if its OK with her
3. Not being a victim to your vulnerable side
People will be OK with anything that you are ok with it and that includes the darker side of yourself. If you still judge yourself, they too will judge you too. They will pick up of on your fears, insecurity and judgments and pounce on them.
You must first go in and love and accept every part of yourself. Loving exactly what’s going inside of you doesn’t mean having desire to change those things.
Its not a self help technique to try to improve because you are perfect already, you just need to realize it – “I’m perfect with all of my flaws, fears, doubts and insecurities” Ironically, loving yourself and not trying to improve them will cause you to improve the most.
Whenever you judge yourself for anything do the following:
1. Know that its only the ego that judges, not the true you beyond your mind
2. Say the following affirmation “I love and accept myself completely just the way I am”
“Not being needy and looking to see if its OK with her” Once you truly love and accept a part of yourself you no longer fear others judgments (good or bad) because you no longer judge yourself.
We only fear the judgments of othersif we judge ourselves for it FIRST. Neediness in the area of being vulnerable will only come if we want external validation from someone else, a desire to be told that its OK to feel this way.
Accepting the way you are doesn’t mean you become a victim to your flaws. You don’t sit there and complain about or feel victim to them-that’s not accepting them, that’s being a poor me (person who takes little or no response-ability for their lives) Taking charge of life is what a man is and what attracts women to us. Becoming a victim to ANYTHING is going to kill the attraction.
Many many many people fear being vulnerable to others and as a result hold back. Often when you are vulnerable with another person they see themselves in you and will react negatively and attack. They do this because they don’t like what they see in you because they don’t like it in themselves and judge very harshly. If this happens, just know that it is not about you and that you are truly loved.
Another reason people hold back from being vulnerable with each other is the fact that they don’t know how to own their own strength. Whenever we give our power away to others and take crap from them, it closes our hearts and causes us to pull back. It’s painful to be open with someone and have them take advantage or them treat us not so nicely.
We must get the yellow chakra down first (owning strength) before we can open our hearts. Think back to your first love and how much you gave your power away to them. You let them get away with things and it hurt pretty badly. In order to avoid not feel this pain again we stop being vulnerable to people and close ourselves off. Often people think its because they loved too much that they got hurt. It wasn’t their heart that was the problem it was that they didn’t own their strength.
I don’t fear opening my heart up to people and becoming completely vulnerable with them. I don’t fear this because I know I won’t get taken advantaged of because I don’t give my power away to other people. I can be as free as I want to and not worry because the second someone tries to play games with me I will put an end to it. I don’t end up feeling stupid afterwards and close my heart because I don’t take crap from people.
Letting go of the past and learning to own your strength in order to be vulnerable in life is the greatest thing you can do for yourself. Not being who you are on the inside is very lonely. Ironically the loneliness is the same loneliness that most everyone else suffers from. Let the walls come down and share the gift of you with everyone.
Stumble It!
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, tear down those walls! Top notch post, Alex.
I’m sorry to hear about your comments situation! Just remember to backup the database next time
Hope all is well!
Alex
Exactely. You feel more free when you are actually able to “be yourself” so to speak without having to worry about losing the attraction. Thanks a lot Alex.
I need to hire someone tech savvy to take care of cases like this.
Alex
Great post. I have just recently opened up to a very fine woman , she basicly asked me to tell her about something I had brought up in conversation a day earlier… It was my very deepest fear and limiting belief that caused the fearr… It felt so good to do that and I now know that I can tell her anything.. and it really does not matter what happens in this situation… I am vulnerable and it feels really great.
Better to be free and alone then scared and with others. You might be surrounded by other people but at the cost of being who you are.
It does feel amazing to be open with another person. That’s really part of what we are looking for. To people that we can be open with and to connect with them on a deep level. When you connect with someone like that you don’t feel as alone or distant as you did before. Congrats on being able to open up.
Thanks for the feedback
Thank you
Then again… What’s not to love? Even if you live in the gutter, you should still love thyself. Our body is beautiful, it can heal itself, it has its own biological time, it’s our portal to this beautiful reality, it has so many senses, so many channels, it has trillions of cells able to communicate with each other, it is able to transmit energy with other people and etc and etc… it’s wonderful.
The body knows, just let it be.
thank you for sharing
No problem will, thanks for commenting. I agree, no matter what you can always have love for yourself. Most people don’t realize that because they believe they are worthy of love when they have a certain status in life.
Hey Alex,
Great article. I love that you’re highlighting the openness to be authentic and vulnerable without falling into the victim mentality. We have to love ourselves first and not go out and be vulnerable as a way of saying “Please love me for who I am, because I don’t.” which is just a form of neediness.
Thanks for writing this.
Thanks a lot Ariel. “Please love me for who I am, because I don’t.” which is just a form of neediness.”
Exactly. It’s amazing what I have learned on both sides of the neediness coin. I was vulnerable in the past while being needy and I got eaten alive. It came off as weakness. Since I was weak I attracted an equally weak person they took advantage of it to feel more powerful themselves.
Now being on the other side of the coin being powerful and having a powerful girlfriend
changes everything. She doesn’t take advantage of the situation because she isn’t a weak person gaining a false sense of power. Those moments actually deepen her love and attraction for me.
If you watch any super hero movies you will see the same situation going on. Women loved batman not only because he was batman but he also had ‘weaknesses.’ It was his vulnerability combined with his strength that women flocked to. It’s the vulnerability that makes you more relatable to women.
With both inline it becomes extremely powerful not only to women but yourself.
wow…
great insights… I haven’t understood this concept before but now it feels like… finally being free
I love your articles. I think you’re helping a lot of people.
Once I was seeing some I REALLY liked. I was so nervous around her, and I was scared to death my nervousness would run her off. I decided just to tell her i was nervous around her. i just said it and she told me she was nervous around me too. We went on to have a great relationship. I think you’re dispelling a common myth; that we can’t be vulnerable with women. I think vulnerability is fine. You do a good job of emphasizing that neediness is a relationship killer.
spot on! Nice to read something that is not wrapped up in waffle about how to try to please everyone else to find happiness. Men often find it difficult to be verbally demonstrative and women tend to destroy their own self esteem trying to please men (which they think will make men more demonstrative) which it wont!!!
If you list what you think are you weaknesses you will also see your strengths that are attached to them.
For example: weaknesses = impulsive, jealous, stubborn, secretive, obsessive, critical and opinionated.
This same persons strengths when channelled constructively into a project can be = energetic, devoted, determined, reliable, observant and honest.
Don’t change who you are for anyone, because they will never love you for it!
I like this article, without a doubt it is a sign of confidence to be able to simply be what you really are in front of someone. Unfortunately, this type of message is often lost to people who suffer from low self esteem. I think a lot of this stuff boils down to one’s own sense of identity. What we choose to identify with plays a large role in our ability to feel ‘ok’ letting our guard down in front of another human being. This should also be tempered with a little common sense though, I am certainly not going to completely open up and throw my emotional baggage on a girl I just met. There is a time and a place for everything.
And admitting your weaknesses without rationalizing them or downplaying or judging them will create a large amount of strength inside of yourself. Some of those ‘weaknesses’ will come with a plan on how to overcome them and others will not be so easy. Accept the ones who want to take root and allow your mind to work out the problem.
A good suggestion would be finding a way to get all of your problems out on the table. Whether it’s a good friend, journal or a therapist, just find some way to let go of the consequences and completely let go and get all of that past junk off of your chest. Getting it out will allow you to heal tremendously.
SBC,
Walking up to a stranger and disclosing all of your deepest darkest secrets to them would definitely not be a good idea-unless you are paying them.
I wish I knew how to be vulnerable. It has created such a hindrance for me in every area of my life for so long now. Thank you for writing these articles.