The Vulnerability Boomerang (S1E12)

Show Notes

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What happens when we emerge from a moment of vulnerability - and how can we stop ourselves retreating behind our defences once again?

In this time, as we all emerge from lock-down and the global impact of Covid, it may be that as we lower the barriers to our external world, we begin to raise our internal barriers, in order to protect ourselves once more from the noise of a stirring world.

When we emerge from a time, where we've internally allowed ourselves to let down our defences, it can be hard to maintain that openness (or to not judge ourselves for that vulnerability) when we enter back into our day-to-day lives. 

This podcast is a reflection on vulnerability and how it serves us as part of our progression toward change - globally, and within ourselves.

This doesn’t mean we need to be endlessly open to the world - we still all need clear boundaries of what is ok and what is not. But it does mean that it’s important to keep sight of the things we’ve learnt while we’ve been in that more vulnerable place and to remember that vulnerability truly is our strength. 

Opening ourselves up, letting our defences down, being vulnerable, expressing our true self, IS an act of bravery. 

And each time we do it, it becomes a little easier, a little less scary, and we find ourselves able to stay a little longer and, if we choose, to grow a little more. 

You may want to see the work of Brene Brown to explore this idea of vulnerability as a strength. Or it may be something you've identified within yourself as an opportunity for personal development.

While we keep ourselves closed we may be protecting ourselves, but we are also potentially blocking out people and experiences that can help us grow.

As we move through the depth of the passionate response to The Black Lives Matter campaign, this idea of vulnerability resonates even more.

Allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable, whilst maintaining clear boundaries, is a fundamental component to change - globally and individually.

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What is the Henny Flynn podcast?

A space to settle in and listen, and see where the episode takes you. This inspiring, reflective podcast is an invitation to travel deeper, with compassionate self-enquiry.

Henny shares insights from her own life, alongside practices that help us connect with our inner wisdom, explore our relationship with change and find a greater sense of flow. Henny believes we all hold our own answers, so there are no one-size-fits-all solutions here. This is a space to be with what’s true for you, and to grow from there.

If you’re drawn to slowing down, listening in, and exploring what it means to live with greater authenticity, this podcast is for you. Guided by psychology, mindfulness, therapeutic coaching, flow journaling, and everyday compassion, we explore ideas that help us step further into our inner worlds, in order to shape the changes we seek in our outer worlds.

henny flynn: 00:03

Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Regroup Hour. It s wonderful to have you here. And I hope you found somewhere that feels lovely, to listen undisturbed. I'm Henny, and I'm fascinated by how building a bedrock of self care enables deep and lasting change. The regroup hour is a regular time for some rest, reflection, and relaxation, where I share experiences, knowledge, and tools that help us develop clarity, calm, and confidence, so we can make and manage the changes that we seek.

henny flynn: 00:37

These are all things that have been useful for me personally in some way, And my guests are all people who have either played a part in my own change journey or who have experienced their own deep and lasting change. So it's a gentle hour ish to take a step away from everything that's going on around you and simply join together with others virtually through our live events or metaphorically through listening to these recorded sessions to explore what may be useful to you in times of change. It truly is an opportunity to regroup with others and with yourself, and settle into whatever this time brings. So a few weeks ago, I shared some thoughts in the podcast on the gift of time about how we can choose what we bring with us from this experience we've had of lockdown. And today I want to talk about how that relates to vulnerability as how the noise and the activity of the world around us begins to return.

henny flynn: 01:49

We may find ourselves closing back down internally. And even as our kind of external world starts to open up. So it's this idea of the kind of paradox, I suppose, of what happens when we come out of a phase where we've been so contained that we've actually been able to open up internally. It's also what happens sometimes after retreat actually, if you've been on a retreat and you have this experience when you're away where everything else around you starts to fall away. The distractions, the noise, the pressures, all of that starts to fall away.

henny flynn: 02:44

And so you're then more able to open up internally and access that more vulnerable part of yourself. And it strikes me that there may be something similar occurring for some of us as we make this shift out of lockdown into whatever it is that comes next. This idea of vulnerability has resonated with me as well as I've listened to feedback from people, lovely comments and very tender messages from people on the back of the podcast that I shared last week, the episode called Mirror, Mirror, where I exposed some of my vulnerability and shared a story of something which has deeply impacted me around my self image and the tools that I've used to help myself move forward from that. So it feels like there's been a bit of a thread around vulnerability and it felt like an opportunity, a beautiful opportunity to talk about something which is incredibly important actually for us all to be able to access our vulnerability and maintain it safely for ourselves. So there's another aspect to this, which I think relates to the response that there has been across the world to this, the cry to end racism.

henny flynn: 04:31

And that cry has been deep and impactful. And my sense is that it's come out of vulnerability. It's come out of a willingness to look something terrible in the eye and say, that's enough. We've had enough now. And as humans, we often find it hard to acknowledge things we don't like about ourselves or about our society or about the people that we hold dear because we're hardwired to protect ourselves from difficult feelings, which is why it can often feel very overwhelming when we do look in the face of the more challenging feelings and emotions and experiences that we have.

henny flynn: 05:20

So harnessing our vulnerability or our willingness to accept what needs to change is an enormous power. And it also takes courage to do that. Brenna Brown, as I'm sure you're familiar with her work. And if not, then look her up. She did an incredible TED Talk a few years ago.

henny flynn: 05:48

She's also done a series on Netflix as well. And her sort of mantra really is that vulnerability is our strength. So I wonder whether there is a correlation here between the experience of lockdown, the place of vulnerability that has brought us to that experience of lockdown, the vulnerability of being collectively impacted by the COVID virus and the vulnerability that we've been able to access because of being in that lockdown space, whether that has been part of what has made this cry out against racism possible right now. So this time of lockdown has obviously meant many things to many people and we've all experienced it in our own way. And I suppose that the essence of this really is that while we have raised these physical barriers between ourselves and others in order to protect ourselves, protect our family members and loved ones.

henny flynn: 07:08

We may have also simultaneously lowered some of our internal barriers to ourselves. So how is this manifested or how has it been manifested? I think it's shown itself through the way that people have accessed their creative sides. There's been such wonderful creativity explored and shared on social media over the last weeks and months, people who perhaps didn't know that they had it within them to be so creative. I think it's also something that I've certainly seen from people that I work with, clients that I work with, it's opened up some opportunity for reflection and for self awareness.

henny flynn: 07:59

People have also connected more deeply to nature. Again, that's something that I cover in the episode, Gift of Time, how nature has become much more present for us because other things have fallen away. And I think people have also, this again is something I've noticed, people have become more grateful for small things, even while they've been frightened perhaps of big things around them. So all of this requires an opening up to be creative, requires a great degree of vulnerability. We're exposing ourselves and opening up a part of us that perhaps may have been closed down even since childhood.

henny flynn: 08:52

So this vulnerability is a willingness to express ourselves. That after times when we have allowed ourselves to let down our defenses, it can be hard to maintain that openness or even to not judge ourselves for having been vulnerable when we enter back into our day to day lives. So I'll explain a little bit more what I mean about that. But essentially, it doesn't mean that we need to be endlessly open to the world. Vulnerability is not about stripping ourselves naked and utterly raw.

henny flynn: 09:37

It means that we still need clear boundaries of what is okay and what is not. But it also means that it's important to keep sight of the things we've learned while we've been in that more vulnerable place. And to remember, as Brunei says, that vulnerability truly is our strength. So I call this the vulnerability boomerang. This idea that we throw ourselves out there in this act of vulnerability.

henny flynn: 10:09

And then something happens that triggers us and we spring right back to ourselves. The boomerang comes flying back and we close down again. And I've certainly seen it in myself. I've seen it in times when I have opened up and revealed a part of me that I normally keep well hidden and safely protected. And then the dust settles and maybe I feel a little bit raw or that voice of judgment, that inner critic has piped up and said, Oh, why did you do that?

henny flynn: 10:47

And so I then have a sense, compelling sense that I need to rebuild my defenses and I need to stop myself taking that risk again. And this act of unlearning the vulnerability Boomerang effect has been very powerful for me personally. And I see the impact in others as well that when we learn to maintain our ability to be vulnerable, it means maintaining our authenticity, our congruence with the world and not have this sort of triggered response of closing ourselves down because we want to keep ourselves safe. So these moments of vulnerability can arise and it may be an example that may resonate with you is perhaps a time of speaking your truth to someone that you don't normally speak your truth to. So something arises within you that makes you go, No, I need to express this.

henny flynn: 11:59

Not in an aggressive way or a volatile way, just needing to express it. And then afterwards thinking, oh no, why did I do that? Why did I speak like that? It may be even something like forgetting yourself on the dance floor and dancing with such abandon that it feels like the most gorgeous flow. And then the next morning feeling as though you've embarrassed yourself in some way.

henny flynn: 12:31

Or it may be a moment of laughing so loudly and so deeply from the bottom of your belly in a place where perhaps others have been more serious. So these things, they can trigger us because we are hardwired to keep ourselves safe. Back to that point around, you know, we're hardwired to protect ourselves from things. And so the balance comes in of recognizing that it's okay to be ourselves. It's okay to dance when we love a beautiful piece of music.

henny flynn: 13:16

It's okay to laugh as long as it's not disrespectful for other people or something like that. It's okay to laugh loudly. It's okay to speak our truth when we do it with respect. It's okay to share ourselves. And so in order to be able to do that, we also need to be able to recognize where our boundaries lie.

henny flynn: 13:41

So we don't ricochet sort of in and out and come back into ourselves. So there's this muscle memory, I suppose, to moments of vulnerability that can trigger us to close-up. But like anything else, it's something that we can learn. We can develop the muscle of how we nurture our boundaries so we can hold ourselves safe within our vulnerability. And so we're not driven by those fears of what other people may think of us, but we can recognise them, we can hear them and we can choose how we want to respond.

henny flynn: 14:28

This is a theme that we come back to again and again and again with the regroup power, the fact that we are able to choose our response. I've had a number of people talk to me about the Viktor Frankl quote that I have shared in previous podcasts around between stimulus and response, there is a space. You know, this idea that we are able to choose how we respond to things. And my feeling is that even as we face into whatever the coming weeks and months bring as we come out of lockdown, this may be a time when we can continue to nurture and support ourselves within our vulnerability and within those boundaries that we recognize we need to keep us safe, but that we don't turn them into barriers because barriers shut us down. They keep us isolated and they hold people out.

henny flynn: 15:38

So next time that feeling of rawness arises, of reacting to it or being led by it, take a moment to simply notice it and notice where in your body you're feeling it. So there are a couple of other podcasts that we've done recently around resilience and also the one on energy and the still point with Emmanuel that contain core resources that can help us maintain boundaries, not barriers. And that can help us stay true to our full, vulnerable, authentic self. One way of doing it is this act of noticing where in our body we feel this sense that we are feeling vulnerable. We're feeling a bit scared.

henny flynn: 16:29

We've exposed ourselves in some way. So notice where in your body you're feeling it. Thank yourself for bringing it to your attention. So we start right away from a place of gratitude, not a place of judgment. And then tell yourself that it's okay, you've got this.

henny flynn: 16:53

We don't need to ricochet back into ourselves. We don't need to act you know as the boomerang. Notice how you're feeling. Notice what happens to the feeling when you pay attention to it and see if you can calm it further. Breathe into the space where that feeling is residing.

henny flynn: 17:17

It may help to actually place your hand on your body wherever it is that you're feeling it. If you feel it in your belly, breathe into your belly and hold your belly. If you feel it in your chest, breathe into your chest and hold your chest. If you feel it in your heart, hold your heart and breathe into your heart and just take a few deep breaths to calm yourself and to reassure yourself that you're okay, that you've got this. So this act of self awareness and self soothing, it's a wonderful tool whenever we feel anxious or afraid and we can just keep doing it.

henny flynn: 18:01

Just keep coming back to it until we notice that the feelings subside. And emotions, which is what this feeling of rawness, this feeling of fear is an emotion, they tend to last about fifteen seconds. So if we can just hold ourselves in that time then we can calm ourselves enough to decide what we want to do next. Opening ourselves up, letting our defenses down, being vulnerable, it is an act of bravery. And this means appearing as our full self in the most respectful and non judgmental and beautiful way, in the way that we show up for ourselves and we show up with others.

henny flynn: 18:54

And each time we do it, it becomes a little easier, a little less scary. We find ourselves able to stay a little longer in that space of vulnerability. And if we choose then we can create an opportunity for us to grow even more. So, there is a quote that I want to share with you in a moment to bring this episode to a close. But before I do that, there is something here coming back to what I was talking about earlier, about this cry to end racism, this spirit that has arisen collectively to tackle something which has been so damaging for so many lives.

henny flynn: 19:54

And how I see that response to racism, how I see it as coming out of a place of immense strength through vulnerability. And I see that as being a source of great change in the world. And in exactly the same way, this willingness to experience ourselves and to allow ourselves to appear in the world as our vulnerable, authentic self is a source of great potential change within ourselves too. Because by doing that, we are able to face into the things that we're afraid of and the things that hold us back from making changes that we know we want to create. So the invitation is to rest in this moment, to think about what vulnerability means to you, to think about what vulnerability you have experienced over the past few weeks, months, perhaps just during this time of lockdown, and think what from that experience will serve you as you step into whatever the coming weeks and months may bring?

henny flynn: 21:32

And how does that form part of your bedrock for your own next phases of change? Because as we know, the only thing that's constant is change. And that leads me on to this beautiful quote, which is from a book called The Exquisite Risk by Marc Nepo. And it's a quote where he references Henri Nguyen. I'll read it and then we'll bring this episode to a close.

henny flynn: 22:14

We cannot change the world by a new plan, project or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals. But we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, lay aside their occupations and preoccupations, and listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center. We can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, To lay aside occupations and preoccupations and listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center. That quote, and I've deliberately read that the second half twice, that quote for me speaks of vulnerability.

henny flynn: 23:14

It speaks of what it is that we can achieve when we step aside from ourselves and allow ourselves to appear as our full self in the world. So thank you so much for listening once again. And if this concept of being vulnerable or your experience of lockdown has triggered thoughts for you, things that you feel it would be beneficial to explore, then you know where I am. And in the meantime, I send you a hug and a wave.