Sitting in front of a room, with twenty sets of eyes looking at you while you teach a yoga practice can feel pretty intense. Not because I’m particularly interesting, but because people are coming to tend to themselves – to feel better physically and emotionally. At times the pressure (we) teachers feel to make it worth everyone’s time and that can feel all-consuming. Sime might say that it requires vulnerability to teach, but I think it’s something else.
I think it takes courage to do it. I think it requires confidence, yet courage is often confused with being vulnerable. Like anything we do that pushes us out of our comfort zone, that makes us question our capacity to do said thing, it feels hard. But hard doesn’t mean it’s vulnerable.
Vulnerability has become such a hot word that I think it can be over-used, specifically when applied to things that make us feel uncomfortable, because discomfort doesn’t mean we’re being vulnerable.
Discomfort plays an important role in our lives, because it can help us grow our confidence by doing things that feel hard, but it’s not being vulnerable. Vulnerability isn’t about making you feel more confident, vulnerability is a raw honesty about ourselves and our own truths and experiences, and most of us don’t share these intimate details ‘out loud’ on the regular.
I can teach to a large room of people and not once be vulnerable. I might feel self-doubt or struggle with feeling good enough, but that doesn’t make me vulnerable, it makes me human and focused on how I’m feeling instead of trying to share the best of my abilities.
We can’t spend our days ‘being vulnerable’. We’re meant to share selectively when we feel safe enough to do so. The thing is, most people never feel safe enough to do so. We don’t share the most intimate thoughts with our partners, we hold back from being honest with friends for fear of being rejected. We’re not honest at work for worry of losing our job. We don’t say out-loud what we most want in the world because we can’t handle the thought of rejection.
In most of the yoga classes I teach I ask people how they’re doing, and everyone responds with what’s going on in their body physically (tight hips for example) or what they want physically. Most people don’t think about how they’re doing emotionally, most aren’t thinking…. well, this clenching I feel in my jaw is because I’m holding back from speaking up for something that’s important in my life. Or the tightness in my chest is from feeling unloved and unseen by my partner. It’s not that tight jaw and chest have those meaning for everyone, it’s just an example.
Just ask someone how they feel about something, and you’ll see how much they’re able to access their own emotions. A lot of the times it’s ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I have to think about that’. I asked friends of mine that are a couple what feels vulnerable for them to share with each other, and I said they didn’t have to share specifics, but how it feels to be vulnerable, and they couldn’t answer the question.
When we’re not used to being open and deeply honest, it feels foreign to us. It’s like parenting, you have truly no idea what it’s like until you do it, regardless of how much you think you know about it.
What’s not vulnerable? Thinking we’re better than someone else. Believing that our personal style makes us more likeable, measuring our worth by how many ‘popular people’ we associate with, having friendships with someone that we never actually feel-good when hanging out with them, we just feel like we’re seen as good enough for having them in our lives. Also not vulnerable, talking about people as a way to connect with others, thinking we have all the answers. Or judging, slandering or trying to cancel someone.
Being vulnerable means letting people in, it means being honest about something that’s hard to feel. It means not pretending like we have it all figured out. It’s admitting why we’re feeling reactive or triggered. It’s shinning a light on our shame instead of lashing out or hiding.
It’s not a show and tell, it’s not a bullet point list of our faults.
When I teach a class or a training and someone is willing to speak about what they’re feeling or going through, not as a show-and-tell, but sharing something they’re currently contending with, which includes expressing emotions and why it’s hard, the others in the room feel seen. There’s a collective softening of the shoulders. There’s an exhale that is felt by all. It’s a release, not only for the person sharing, but for those listening. That’s vulnerability. I know that expressing something that feels heavy to us is like tearing out our heart from our own chest, but if we learn to lean into being open with one person (doesn’t have to be a whole room of people) the weight we’ve been carrying of that ‘thing’ softens. We let go of holding, and that impacts our emotional health in a positive way.
When we let go of holding in a truth, we care for our immune system, when the tension that is released, we dislodge stress and inflammation, we promote heart health and decrease blood pressure, it helps not only our emotional health but our physical health.
Your super power is being honest, it’s being open with the someone you need to be with. It’s part of our health-care, and it’s a super power.
xo Noelle