Vulnerability is everywhere!
It’s on social media, in self-help books, on Ted talks, discussed in countless therapy rooms.
Vulnerability can be extremely confusing, especially for us blokes!
In this episode Howard and Ryan unpack it all for you.
- What does vulnerability really mean?
- Why is it often mistaken for weakness?
- How it can actually be a source of strength.?
- Can vulnerability be transformative?
- How does it make a difference to your mental health and relationship?
- When does it simply not work?
If you’ve ever wondered whether opening up is worth the risk, or is vulnerability really all that necessary this conversation is for you.
If this episode raises a need to get some counselling support Howard is available for consultations.
Check out his private practice:
Men and Relationships Counselling
Or reach out to a professional in your area.
Do you want to learn more ways to improve your relationship skills?
Check out our Online Mini Course:
‘From Shut Down to Communication – 4 Relationship Boosting Strategies for Men’
Follow us + Join the Conversation
www.menandrelationships.com.au
Contact us – howard@menandrelationships.com.au
TRANSCRIPT
SPEAKER_00: 0:00
Vulnerability is everywhere. It’s all over social media. It’s on TikTok and Instagram. It’s in self-help books, it’s in TED Talks, and it’s been discussed in countless therapy rooms across the world as I speak. But what does vulnerability really mean? Why is it often mistaken for weakness? And how can it actually be a source of strength? Now if you’ve ever wondered whether opening up is worth the risk, or is vulnerability really all that necessary, this conversation with my good friend Ryan is right up your street.
Can vulnerability be transformative? How does it make a difference to your mental health and your relationship? And when does it simply not work? Welcome to Man Talk, a podcast of real conversations about life, your life, our life, and the emotional well-being of men. My name is Howard Todd Collins. I’m the director of Men and Relationships Counseling.
Thank you for being there. Sit back, relax, and join me and Ryan for this latest episode of Men Talk. Hello. Hello, how are you? Good.
SPEAKER_01: 1:26
Thanks to see you. Good to be with you.
SPEAKER_00: 1:28
Thanks for being here again. We’re gonna start another conversation, an important conversation that keeps coming up, I think, in my own life, but also my conversations in my work, certainly with not just with men, but uh with couples and women as well, around this whole idea of vulnerability. And there’s a question, it came from a client of mine a while ago who asked me in no uncertain terms, is it really necessary to be that vulnerable in our lives? And it was in the context of his relationship issues that he was talking about. But also it came across or it came out as he didn’t really know quite what it meant.
So we began talking a bit about defining it and understanding it, let alone, is it really all that necessary? And he was a guy that said to me at one point he would rather have significant dental surgery than talk about his emotions and feelings. He was very against this whole idea of being open and talking about his emotional life. And yeah, at the same time, he wanted to understand, is it not necessary?
So that kind of underpins the conversation that we’re going to have. And maybe we try and look at defining it a little bit, not to get too caught up in the constraints of a definition, but it could be a useful way of uncovering what is this really about and how does it show up and what is the constriction here, what helps, what doesn’t help? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: 2:55
The way that your client described it just shows how uncomfortable it feels. And then I’m interested to know: is this a theme that you find comes up regularly with your clients? Like this idea of vulnerability, is it important? Can I live my life without being vulnerable?
SPEAKER_00: 3:11
Is that a pattern that you find with when someone comes into a therapy room, first off, or counseling room, and says, I’ve got a problem. I’m not sure what to do with it, I don’t know how to talk about it. And I often say, Thank you for coming first, to come and talk to somebody you don’t know about a problem. Because that in itself is a willingness to be vulnerable, because you don’t quite know what you’re going to expect when you’re talking to a therapist necessarily, you’ve got an idea. But it’s also brave.
Most of us need to feel that courage and bravery to acknowledge that we’re struggling and we don’t have all the answers. And I think that’s a kind of starting point in my work with people, that it’s okay not to know. And together we can try and work out how we find some better understanding of what is the issue here, what’s the struggle. And the vulnerability struggle, particularly the word itself, carries a whole lot of baggage attached to it for people.
Certainly men that I work with who it’s a bit classical, that’s just weakness. Why would I want to be so vulnerable? I don’t feel strong in that. I would rather be stoic or in some way logical and rational, and that’s the way to cope with life struggles. And of course that’s true, that’s important. But there’s something about unexpressed emotion and feelings that are behind our life struggles that if we’re internalizing and swallowing and dismissing and distracting ourselves from come out in different ways.
SPEAKER_01: 4:38
Yeah, in some ways it makes sense when people express that because it’s like, why do I want to show my weakness or perceived weakness? Exactly. And of course it’s natural for a man to want to be strong and stoic and all that sort of thing. Probably where the challenge comes in is it’s not necessarily vital that you have to express vulnerability. I think it’s more if you’re feeling vulnerable anyway and you’re blocking that expression with someone who you could actually do it safely, then maybe that’s a challenge.
Like, because then there’s a big difference between how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking, and what you’re saying. There’s like a big mismatch. So it’s not you should feel compelled to go out and express vulnerability everywhere. But if you’re repeatedly blocking yourself from expressing it, particularly in an intimate relationship, then that’s probably going to be a bit of a challenge.
SPEAKER_00: 5:29
The first parts of my inquiry with people, and this is my self-inquiry as well, is the question of what am I doing with these internalized thoughts and feelings that are uncomfortable? And most of us, I think most of us and people listening will know why would we want to be in pain?
Why would we choose to be in pain? And so the natural default will be I don’t want that feeling. I’m going to try and do everything I can to avoid it or run away from it or numb it in some form and distract from it, which is a natural tendency, it’s the fight-flight thing. Why would I want to feel that way? I would rather just hold it, hide it, and somehow eventually it goes away. And of course it does go away, and then it comes back, usually, depending on what it’s about. And so I I tend to think a bit about how we’ve learnt about vulnerability in our lives. Who’s demonstrated that for us? How do we learn about the value of it?
And I don’t know about you, my experience growing up as a young boy, young man, very much was, like I talked about before, with the stoic, pragmatic view of life. And we don’t share what we’re feeling much, we just get on with it and we just swallow everything else down. And I learned very quickly, that ended up me feeling something was off, but not quite knowing what it was about.
Not having the language for it, but also not even wanting to open up that much to it because I was scared of being judged or being criticized, or classic one is, and this is a I ask this of people a lot when I ask them, what does a vulnerability mean? A lot of people say it means that I’m not good enough. And as a first response to their own feelings with a label or a judgment, and I often say, I’m not sure that’s vulnerability, that’s your response to feeling vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01: 7:18
So you mean they yeah, they feel vulnerable and their immediate reaction is I’m not good enough. I shouldn’t be feeling this.
SPEAKER_00: 7:24
There’s something wrong with me. Yes. And of course, that’s not vulnerability, that’s shame. And it’s really common, I think, and this is this was my experience, to not feel good or feel sad or worried or anxious and label that with there is something wrong with me is all part of going down the rabbit hole of shame. And when we’re feeling shame, we hide generally. And when we hide, we don’t just hide from ourselves, we hide from people that we love and we care about sometimes as well.
So that kind of initial response to feeling vulnerable as a judgment, as a shame process stops people in their tracks. There’s nowhere to go from that. Unless we start to unpack it more around that’s the judgment that you’re putting in front of you around a normal human struggle contextually when things are not going well for you or when, excuse my language, shit happens. Judgment stops people in their track. And I think we’re all very good at it, not because men, I think it applies to lots of us.
SPEAKER_01: 8:30
Why do you think it’s good to express your vulnerability?
SPEAKER_00: 8:39
One of the best feelings in the world, I think, and I believe in, and I think this happens in therapy, it happens in in really good open relationships, is the feeling of being heard and understood. The validation and empathy and compassion are the skills or the values that remove shame. Very powerful. You’re allowed to feel what you feel. And when you start to find the language and expression and feel safe, you’re not going to be judged. In fact, you’re going to get a lot more than that. You’re going to get a lot more around normalizing human struggle.
SPEAKER_01: 11:47
So it’s like that feeling of relief where you say what’s really going on, and the person that you’re talking to says, I see you, like I accept you.
SPEAKER_00: 11:54
And in fact, I have the same experience of you as you sometimes, that I’m not immune to it. I think the power of good friendships, of good connection in a relationship, and even good therapy, which is the intimate space of conversation, is someone who is receiving somebody who’s able to say, I get you, because I’ve been there, I hear you. Let’s talk a bit about that because I can relate. And even if I can’t relate, I want to know more about it because I can learn from you.
SPEAKER_01: 12:24
Yeah. Sometimes it’s hard to know when to express vulnerability and who to express it with. Yeah. And quick story that I don’t think I’ve told you, I can’t remember. Yeah. That I was once with a friend of mine many years ago and he said to me, How are you? And I started telling him what was happening in my life, and he interrupted me and said, I’m not really asking you how you are, I’m just saying, How are you? I don’t really want to know. Yeah. And that’s sometimes where maybe you anticipate that feeling of shame because you’re vulnerable in the wrong moments with the wrong person.
Or you’re not received in the way that you want to. And that kind of sends the message, oh, I need to be careful because I suppose like a classical definition of vulnerability is susceptible to attack or hurt. Yeah. Like you’re making yourself susceptible. Yes. And then the nice thing is that you make yourself susceptible and then you’re well received, and that creates a feeling of intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: 13:15
Exactly. It’s a really good example because it’s the definition around it is the uncertainty and the risk of exposing yourself emotionally. But also physically. This works in lots of other ways in life. You think about I don’t know, running a marathon or jumping out of a plane. The vulnerability of physicality clearly is also parts of people’s lives as well. The vulnerability of health and poor health and going for operations and medical procedures and so on. There is vulnerability in all those things.
There’s uncertainty and there’s risk. And the reality is that is what happens in our lives. We can’t control everything. But what we can do, maybe, is look at how we’re responding to some of these uncertainties and risks in the right space and the right time. I remember when I first came to Australia, British Stoic upbringing and all that.
And the classic one for people that you met was, How are you? And that’s not something that I would have begun a conversation with anybody, let alone a stranger, back in my life and growing up in the UK. How are you was of quite an intimate question. So I get what you were saying before about what does that really mean? And it struck me at the time, thinking, I don’t know what to do with that question.
SPEAKER_01: 14:27
Yeah. As someone who grew up in South Africa, the classic greeting would be, hello, hello, how are you? Yeah. And then the classic response is fine, thanks, how are you? And then you’re meant to say, fine. Yeah. And then you’ve ticked off the greeting.
SPEAKER_00: 14:42
And that’s it. Yeah. And we’re done. Yeah. Let’s talk about the football thing. I think the intimacy of understanding this in a, I guess, of course, the context really of relationships and men’s health and even at work and leadership. The more I meet people who are managers, leaders, business owners, leading teams.
And over the years, we’ve got a lot more aware of emotional intelligence and leadership and the value of showing up with a degree of planning forward and holding teams together and to help them move in a direction. But also that it’s okay not to have all the answers. The uncertainty of being a leader is okay to talk about sometimes.
And seeking out help from others as a form of leadership, as a form of guiding people. And I see that in lots of ways in relationships where men particularly, but partners want to fix the problems for people they love. And some of those problems are not always fixable. They just need to be processed and explored and in some way emotionally understood before you get to any kind of solution. In fact, in some ways, you don’t even need the solution.
You just need to be there to listen. I heard recently, I think maybe it was a conversation I had with a client where in a couple session we were talking about vulnerability and the value of it. And I was talking about love and what love looks like and what it means when you love somebody and how you connect with somebody through kind of heart-based sort of stuff.
And the flip side of love is the capacity to be vulnerable and open emotionally, to have negative emotions as well as positive ones. And there’s a real intimacy in being able to say to your partner, I just don’t have all the answers, I’m not traveling well. I’m not perfect.
SPEAKER_01: 16:31
And to be just going back to the question that you were posed by this client and maybe in other ways by other people, you’re saying yes, it is important to be able to express vulnerability. You can’t get by without it, is that right?
SPEAKER_00: 16:46
To some degree, you have to have some element of that to feel close to somebody. So I often look at it in terms of connection through emotion, not just connection through behavior.
SPEAKER_01: 17:05
So if we’ve established that it is an important part of like your repertoire as a human, if you want to be intimate with other people and yourself, so then like thinking back about this client who mentioned how scary it is, and I totally get that, like it’s so out of his comfort zone.
SPEAKER_00: 17:23
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: 17:23
For people in that situation, and probably all of us to a greater or lesser degree experience fear or uncertainty around vulnerability. But for people who are really this is so full on, what do you think is a good first step or a good way of starting to practice it in a kind of a safe, controlled way?
SPEAKER_00: 17:41
There’s a few things that come to mind. I’m thinking about what it means to create safety internally as well as with somebody else. And if you think about, I don’t know what it’s like for you, but when I get anxious and fearful, I notice changes in my body. In a conversation in therapy, what I often say to some of the people I work with is let’s slow down a little bit as you’re talking. Because I may notice with somebody that they’re a bit more fidgety or restless, or their facial expressions are changing, or their sound of their voice is changing. And I’ll say to people fairly gently, let’s just stop for a moment because we’re talking about something that’s clearly difficult for you.
Because I’ve noticed some things changing in you. What do you notice in yourself? Now, there’s some people that are really good at capturing that for quite quickly. Yeah, I notice that my I’m moving a lot, I’m stuttering, or I’m going hot, and my breath is changing.
Or if they don’t know, I’ll ask them just to slow down and just check in with their body. And usually they’ll find an area of their body that they’re aware of that’s tense or difficult, and I’ll say, let’s just breathe into that for a moment and slow down. And let’s try and quiet the mind a bit and try and understand what’s going on in your nervous system because this is all part of where your emotions are sitting. And you may describe it as tension or you may describe it as it’s a bit hard to breathe, so I’m going to slow down a bit.
And I’ll say, let’s just breathe through it for a moment and see whether we can get you to calm your mind. And then we can talk a bit about this experience as we’re talking. And instead of logically thinking, rationalizing your way out of this conversation, and it can be about something really important like losing a father or losing a parent or separating from a partner, big stuff. And it’s held in the body somewhere. And I think when it’s done safely and gently with some care and compassion, people start to discover that they can actually sit with what they’re feeling in a way. And I often ask them when they’re in that space, what do you think you need now when you’re aware of your anxiety or your loss or your fear or your sadness?
SPEAKER_01: 19:56
So you’re describing actually coming into contact with and then expressing it in a very conscious way. Yeah. Because maybe sometimes people can get confused between just getting stuff off their chest or even a version of complaining.
SPEAKER_00: 20:09
Yes.
SPEAKER_01: 20:10
Like sometimes that can be confused with vulnerability. How are you? Oh, not good, this isn’t good, that isn’t good, and that isn’t necessarily vulnerability, whereas yeah, what you’re describing is actually really actively and consciously tuning into what’s going on. Yeah. And then working with it, noticing it in your body, and then maybe finding words to express it.
SPEAKER_00: 20:34
I think there is something about the value of sharing feelings and thoughts without necessarily worrying about what it’s going to sound like. But most people worry about that it’s going to sound like a complaint or a blame. The blame complain game. With nowhere else to go. In some ways not scaffolded very well for people. It needs some kind of parameter that says you can feel this, and then what do you need? Because the need or the expression of need helps most of us, I think, to feel like we’re coming back into control. I just need to talk or I need you to listen.
SPEAKER_01: 21:12
I think what you described in therapy, that process of becoming conscious of what’s going on, tuning in, expressing that vulnerability in a way where you’re aware and taking responsibility for it, that’s quite a good way of practicing it, especially if it feels very unsafe. It’s pretty safe to practice that in therapy. Yeah, exactly. And then to start to take that into the outside world.
SPEAKER_00: 21:32
See, I wonder the other part of the extension of this is relationships, how it does work in relationships. And lots of couples that I meet are very busy. The kids, there’s work, there’s lots of external demands. There’s just no time for those deep and meaningful conversations to happen. And I think to some degree, you actually have to cultivate the space. When we first meet partners, when there’s no kids and nothing to encumber us, we can just be ourselves without too many limitations in some ways. And that, of course, changes over time as couples become building their lives together.
Cultivating space as a partner, for me as a bloke, I didn’t even know what that meant. What does it mean to create, let’s just go out, let’s have a date night or whatever, it’s just going to have some fun, which is great, of course. But the other part of the intimacy of vulnerability is to see the value of saying, yeah, I’m not great. I’m I am struggling. I am worried. I’m really anxious. But I think the biggest, the most important part of that is to better say, I’ve got it, I’m working on it.
SPEAKER_01: 22:35
Working on it is a really good point because I think sometimes I’ve noticed, say, conversations with my wife, if I’ve expressed a vulnerability about something, and then she might say, You’ve mentioned that a few times. That’s this is the same story coming up. And then so one thing is vulnerability, which is great expressing yourself, but then it also goes to some degree hand in hand with action. Yeah. So it’s like also, what are you going to do with this thing? How are you going to work with it? Yeah. Like it’s expressing it is just a start, really, isn’t it?
SPEAKER_00: 23:04
It goes into that idea. I think I was saying this before we started recording. This whole idea of the warrior vulnerability to embrace what I’m fearful of, what I’m struggling with, and know that I can look after it and I can still share it at the same time. I can do both. And some of that breathwork stuff that is somehow connecting and integrating the nervous system response to threat of certain kinds of feelings, and yet somehow becoming grounded enough to know I’ll be okay.
I can still talk about what I’m worried about, but I know ultimately I’ll be okay. And then I’m working at it. Now, some of that work may not be with my partner either, with my wife. It may be in therapy or maybe with a friend, it may be in some physical exercise that I’m doing. But the warrior has got what’s going on, can share it, embrace it as being something that’s a value, and also be able to say to maybe to themselves that I’m not going to dump it on you. Because the other partner has to receive it in a way.
There’s some couples that I meet where the bloke needs to be strong, stoic, and solid. And when he’s not, and he starts to share his fears and worries, and he’s not as strong and solid, his partner starts to worry and shake, almost collapse in it. Because they got so used to the strong, solid, stoic rock. And yet that’s not always workable sometimes. And this is very gendered, and it’s very common in my conversations with men. Their expectation to be solid and rock solid, nothing to see here. I can hide behind this, I can I’ve got it on my own. And whilst that’s important, it’s not always possible for some couples to hold that space very well. Not sure if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: 25:04
Yeah, that’s brought up a memory for me, and I can’t remember where it came from talking about warrior culture, like the film Once Were Warriors, or the Maori culture, which is seems to have this very stoic masculine aspect like in New Zealand.
But then also, I don’t know if you’ve been to New Zealand, there there also seems to be a real vulnerability as well, this incredible balance between these really big, strong, tough guys with tattoos, but also often when you get into conversation, they’re very gentle and sensitive. And I can’t remember if this was in the film, but there was this moment where it was like this idea of these soldiers returning from war, like these Maori soldiers who they had a place, it was like a lake where they could go.
Oh, yeah, and they would walk out into the lake and cry. Because it was like this almost kind of ritualistic place to like burden emotion, release, that kind of thing. Yeah. And I just really like that idea that maybe sometimes it is in conversation with your partner, sometimes that could symbolically be breathwork, yeah. It could be whatever your thing is, that the time to unburden yourself emotionally together or apart, but to have something like that lake.
SPEAKER_00: 26:21
There is something about the space to release thoughts and feelings in therapy safely, which creates a sense of relief, really. So we’re not carrying a burdening, so we can somehow put it out into the world and not just internalize and swallow it all down. And some of that is okay in a relationship, a lot of it is also okay outside of it, like you’re saying, that somehow men find ways to release what they’re holding in their nervous system because it’s so unhealthy the more we hold it, the more we digest it, the more we swallow it.
I’ve got a couple of clients who I’m working with at the moment who are eating their way through life, coping by eating. And they’re not they don’t they’re not digesting very well, but they’re also getting unhealthy, they’re getting overweight, and somehow that’s part of the numbing. And the interesting part of some of my thoughts about this around numbing experiences like eating or drinking or whatever, when we numb and act out in ways that create shame, not only do we stop feeling some of the important feelings that we need to feel, which is the negative stuff, we stop feeling the good stuff as well. Because the shame stops us from feeling joy.
SPEAKER_01: 27:36
Yeah, that’s a really good point. Because you switch off to block off those bad feelings. Exactly. Switching off everything.
SPEAKER_00: 27:42
Yeah, which is that whole feeling of just being numb to life, which is awful. So there’s aspects of that are really important to understand what it means to release, but also to try and avoid the numbing. There are so many things we do that numb social media, screen time, movies, whatever. We sometimes want to do it and we need to do it, that’s okay. To a degree.
SPEAKER_01: 28:03
I know I definitely feel like a sense of relief if I choose the right moment with the right person. Yes. And I’m consciously expressing what’s happening for me, particularly if I’m struggling with something. Yeah. And I can put it into words without it being unconscious or without a stream of conscious rambling and complaining sort of thing. Yes. I do feel a little bit lighter often afterwards. It’s just like a bit of a pressure valve as just naming something.
SPEAKER_00: 28:27
Yes. If you name what it is, you just take a bit of pressure off it. It’s like the ideas I was saying at the beginning about the judgment call that we give ourselves, I’m not good enough. And if we name that as being that’s not vulnerable, that’s a judgment, maybe we take a bit of pressure off ourselves and we can explore what’s underneath that more than just buying into the story, that vulnerability is bad or weak, or vulnerability is something wrong with us.
If we actually bypass the story a little bit of the headline and start to understand it’s actually quite okay to be imperfect, that we all make mistakes or that we have flaws or we have parts of ourselves that actually other people share that we don’t often maybe talk about enough, which is really important.
It’s got me thinking a bit about this other idea of vulnerability that’s out there, which is this kind of false vulnerability that we that’s showing up a lot more in social media, for example. And I think you’ve said this to me before. I always think that’s a really useful thing to think about of how what people are seeing out in the world that is vulnerable, seemingly, but somehow doesn’t feel very genuine, not very sincere in some way. I’m not sure because you know this really well and you described it very well before, and I think it would be useful for listeners to hear a bit more about this.
SPEAKER_01: 29:48
They call that performative vulnerability. Yes. Yeah. Because we know that when you express vulnerability, it can create intimacy. So it’s instead of saying to yourself, I’m feeling vulnerable, I need to express it, it’s actually your motivation is I want to endear people to me and I want to increase engagement on social media and all that sort of thing, and I’m going to use vulnerability as a tool in order to do that.
SPEAKER_00: 30:12
Yes.
SPEAKER_01: 30:13
And also thinking about copywriting, basically writing text to sell things to people. There’s an idea within that called a non-fatal admission. And that’s basically if you admit something, if you admit a weakness, but it doesn’t make you look too terrible, then it’ll endear the reader to you and it’ll make them more likely to feel connected with you and trust you and therefore buy. So there’s this whole murky area where or it might be, say, someone like with a bit of a psychopathic personality or something like that, can consciously use it as a way of manipulating people or creating this false sense of intimacy. It’s it can be a murky area.
SPEAKER_00: 30:55
It is murky. I’m just thinking as you’re talking, what you would say to anybody this is a question for both of us, but what you would say to anybody, how do you gauge that for a kind of measure what’s real, authentic versus what is more manipulative? I mean, I’ve seen this in various forms on TikTok,
I think, of people who are very upset and very emotional, and then they’ll talk about what’s going on, they’re crying, even you know, something’s going on in their life, and you hear it and you feel it, and then there’s a caption that sort of comes up and says, but buy my PDF, or here here’s three steps to download today. I don’t know. How do you gauge what’s authentic in vulnerability in that sense? But even just generally, how do you know what’s real and what’s not?
SPEAKER_01: 31:47
I just think in a lot of ways it’s actually irrelevant because like vulnerability, it’s a human thing. It’s human to human. Yeah. And the more I see social media, the more dangerous I feel like it is emotionally, because it can suck you in so much. Yeah. And it it creates the experience as if you’re experiencing intimacy or vulnerability, watching these videos, yeah. They feel emotional, and you see these videos of like all kinds of stuff of someone like rescuing a dog and the dog’s nearly dead, and then they feed it. And it’s so easy to become emotional about that stuff, but it’s not real intimacy. There’s no actual relation.
SPEAKER_00: 32:26
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: 32:27
And then also one of the biggest challenges with social media is that because You’re part of a flow, you’ll just go from that story to the next, and you might consume five or ten or twenty, so there’s no resolution. Whereas something like a film, it can be two hours, you go on a journey, there’s a start, a middle, an end, there’s a catharsis.
Yes. And to me, that’s like a much more healthy way of experiencing a sense of vulnerability with something that isn’t even real. Yes. So I would just say to try to limit your exposure and your kind of emotional engagement with that kind of bite-sized content as much as possible. Yeah. I don’t want to give anyone any advice, but it just seems like the algorithm of social media has become so well tuned in, like it’s so powerful. Yeah.
That the thing is that it draws you into a flow and you get into the scroll state where it makes you unconscious. Yeah. Like you surrender your power in a way. And it’s like the exact opposite of what you were describing. Yes. Of really tuning in, noticing your breath, noticing what’s going on inside you. It seems to me that scrolling sensation of social media, like particularly something with Instagram, which is so visual, switches off all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: 33:34
I know that we’re mindful of not giving people advice. So I tend to be fairly forthright with it in my consultations with people. And it’s almost as literal as just stop using your phone. You can sit in a room with a partner and two or three kids, often young adult kids, and everyone’s on the phone and the TV’s on. No one’s actually paying attention to anything that’s going on outside of them.
But if you realize what the screen is doing and that that whole idea of losing time and disconnecting, that’s the numbing that we’re talking about before. And it stops us from the real-time experience of being with ourselves but being with people that we love. And I’m quite happy to say on my podcast, people who are listening, stop the screen time as much, stop scrolling as much and start being in the real world and start to experience life in a way that’s much more gauging on your own experience of yourself as much as what’s going on in front of you on a screen.
SPEAKER_01: 34:31
Just on that topic, the other interesting thing that’s happened that you probably noticed, probably especially over the last year, is that most social media content now is actually people you don’t know because the algorithms worked out that you’re you’ll be more engaged watching other content and actually not your friends. Yeah. So you might only maybe only 20% of it is people that you the rest is like viral videos and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: 34:54
So that’s even less intimacy because you don’t know most of the people that you’re even watching. I wanted to just finish off a bit with something that I was going to start with, but I thought maybe we’ll finish with it is a definition of vulnerability and something that I want to leave people with. The definition is the Brene Brown definition, and people have not heard of her.
She’s got some amazing TED talks that are really worth listening to. She’s not just a researcher, but she’s got this most amazing capacity to be a storyteller as well. But she describes vulnerability as part of what we’ve been talking about today, Ryan, is the uncertainty and the risk of emotional exposure. She has an emphasis on authenticity and honesty. And this whole idea, you were saying this before so beautifully, is allowing ourselves to be seen even if there’s a risk of being hurt, that there is something about the need for all of us, maybe, to be courageous and to be brave.
So courage and fear come together. And she talks about part of this as being an essential ingredient of being able to love, to be belonging to something, and to experience the joy that comes with it. And another part of this that may be easier, I think it’s easy even for me to understand, is in a relational sense and maybe in a personal sense, it’s really about being available and open and being less distracted at the same time. And there there is something about that and resisting the temptations to be so sucked into other external things like social media, where we can just be open and available to ourselves and the people that we love.
SPEAKER_01: 36:38
Well that’s a really interesting idea that I didn’t think about because when I think about vulnerability, I automatically think of the person expressing themselves. Yeah. But it’s just as much the receiver, the person who’s listening. Exactly. And to be vulnerable in listening, to actually be open to receive is obviously just as important.
SPEAKER_00: 36:54
Yeah, exactly. It’s all about the art of being present, and maybe we can look at that at a different time. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: 37:02
Thanks, Howard. I really enjoyed that conversation.
SPEAKER_00: 37:05
Thanks, mate. Thank you.
