Forgetting How To Be Vulnerable

It happens to the best of us, we put up a wall and we have no idea how to knock it down.

Someone along the way hurt you enough or broke your heart enough for you to start building brick by brick.  An indestructible shield around yourself so that no one could get through like that again.  So no one could ever cause that kind of damage to you again.

You probably let that wall down a few times since the initial heartache.  Believing that this time it would be different, that this time you could handle it, that this time there would only be love and not lies. But this just lead to you building that wall with stronger materials. Taller and wider and stronger. Now there really is no way around it.

Being vulnerable is a huge part of a relationship.  The difference between someone being your friend and someone being your significant other has mainly to do how open and comfortable you are with them. If you can’t reveal your blackened and dusty secrets to them – who can you tell?

Now so many of us don’t know how to be vulnerable anymore. Everything we do in the dating world is hidden behind a facade – whether we mean to or not.  Yeah, it would be great to connect someone on that level.  It would be amazing to dig up the things you’ve buried so far deep in yourself because you didn’t have anyone to tell.

But how do you know when someone deserves this information?  And how do you know what they’re going to do with it?  They could cherish it and understand you – forming a bond and a love that will make your life bliss.  Or they could crush it and ignore you – do what everyone else did and leave you in the dark.

Not being vulnerable will hinder your relationships.  I often find myself answering questions generically rather than thoughtfully saying what I’m thinking because I don’t see the point.  You can ask me how my day is going and I can either tell you how it really is.  How I’m really bummed today because it’s raining, I had awful nightmares and didn’t sleep, I’m just overall cranky. Or I can tell you it’s fine.  Because are you really going to fix my bad day – do you really even care?

They say the right person will knock down your wall. They’ll take their hammer and chip away at the hard pieces of you.  But if you have no vulnerability left – will that person ever even get close enough?