This Is How Vulnerability Helps You Grow Emotionally

Allowing ourselves to truly experience our emotions is a beautiful thing and is the first step towards becoming a well-rounded and emotionally balanced person.

As simple as it sounds, it’s not common practice. Especially with young people. Somewhere along the way, we were told to plaster on plastic smiles while posing next to a mountain for our profile pictures and pretend that everything was always okay. We were told that we should bury ourselves in the “hustle” or self-medicate with sex and booze until our feelings are stifled to the point we think we don’t need to face them. Yes, dealing with ourselves hurts.

Admitting to ourselves that we have trust issues or that we hate being alone is hard. Dealing with a breakup without numbing the pain with rebound hookups can be scary. While I understand that pouring yourself another glass of wine is easier than pouring your feelings into a journal, understand this,

Yup, Dr. Phil wasn’t lying – you gotta face your demons’ sooner or later. However, throughout my own journey, I’ve gained a few key insights that has made the process a little less shitty to deal with.

Don’t Interrupt the Process

When we’re going through a period of emotional pain, we must allow ourselves time to heal or there won’t be any growth afterward. We tend to overestimate how much we can handle and hinder our own process by going back to the thing that caused the pain in the first place. Let’s keep it real, this is mostly referring to relationships. It’s funny how the very person that made us feel shitty is the same person we can’t resist going back to.

Every time you re-open that scenario, it’s like ripping the bandage off a cut that’s still bleeding. Yes, it will serve as a temporary salve but what it’s really doing is taking us back to square one. This is one of the hardest things to follow but remember – growth can’t happen unless you release the thing you need to grow out of. You can’t properly dissect and reflect on a situation when you’re still in the thick of it.

Vulnerability Isn’t Weak, It’s Beautiful

I repeat, vulnerability doesn’t mean that you’re weak, it means that you are brave as hell. As an introvert and an emotionally guarded person, this concept used to be foreign to me. It was so damn scary to allow people to see what a complete hot mess I am under the cool exterior I tried so hard to project. But as I got older, I realized that being transparent with the people we care about is one of the joys of life that so many of us miss out on. Instead, we try to manipulate and re-adjust ourselves according to who we think others want us to be.

This is wrong for two reasons. A) We’re all deserving of love exactly as we are and B) when we hide the things about ourselves we deem as “undesirable”, we’re building shaky relationships that eventually collapse due to the weak foundations they’re built on. But honestly, who are we trying to kid? The sooner you realize that we’re all a collection of beautifully broken souls doing our best with the cards life dealt us, the easier it becomes to accept and be yourself. Repeat this over and over again, you’re beautiful and worthy of love. God loves you, somebody else loves you and you should love you. Any improvements you’re making to yourself should simply be extrapolating on that ultimate truth.

Growth Has No Expiration

I turned 30 last May. I was living in Los Angeles and under the impression that I had “arrived” in terms of emotional growth and balance. I had great relationships with my friends and family, I knew what I wanted to do as a career, I felt comfortable in my own skin and had the checklist for my “ideal mate” all figured out. Then I got an opportunity to move to New York City and all the “life lessons” I thought I had conquered went to shit. It took me moving to a new city, switching career paths and leaving everything I knew behind to make me realize that growth is a cycle that starts all over at every stage of your life.

Yes, I’d had a great handle on my life in LA but complacency can trick us into thinking we don’t need to strive to be better. Moving to New York made me realize that I had so much more to learn about myself and others. It challenged me mentally, emotionally and physically to the point where I had to reevaluate everything I thought I knew about myself. It wasn’t fun but re-starting the growth cycle has shown me that there’s far more potential within me than I give myself credit for. And even though I will be just as disoriented and clueless at the next stage of my life, it’s okay, because it’s all just part of the process.

But don’t take it from me. Just breathe and allow yourself to embrace your emotions, good or bad. But simply allowing yourself to feel isn’t enough. Dissect it, reflect on it and spend time alone and meditate on it. The most beautiful human relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself. And 2016 is the year to commit to yourself.