The Vulnerability Trap

Here's the thing about vulnerability nobody wants to tell you...we've turned it into a performance art.

Somewhere between therapy culture going mainstream and everyone becoming their own personal brand, vulnerability stopped being about courage and started being about currency. Social currency, that is.

I see it everywhere now - people competing in the Suffering Olympics, posting their breakdowns like they're collecting badges. "Look how raw I am." "See how real this is." And yeah, maybe it is real.

But when did we start confusing bleeding in public with being brave?

Real vulnerability - the kind that actually transforms you - isn't about broadcasting your wounds to an audience. It's about having the discernment to know who gets access to which rooms in your house. Not everyone deserves a tour of your basement, you know?

The trap is we've been sold the idea that more vulnerability equals more authenticity. But that's like saying more words equal more truth. Sometimes the deepest strength is in what you choose not to share. In knowing that your pain isn't a passport to belonging, and your struggles aren't your identity.

I learned this the hard way - spent years thinking that if I just opened up more, explained myself better, showed people my scars, they'd understand. But here's what changed for me... I realized that vulnerability without boundaries isn't intimacy. It's just spillage. And spillage doesn't create connection - it creates obligation. Makes people feel responsible for holding things they never signed up to carry.

The paradox is that true vulnerability requires tremendous strength.

It's not about making yourself smaller or more fragile - it's about being so solid in who you are that you can afford to let someone see the complexity. The contradictions. The parts that don't fit the narrative.

But first, you have to be solid.

You can't pour from an empty cup, and you can't be vulnerable from a place of desperate need without it becoming manipulation - even if that's not your intention.

So maybe the question isn't "Am I being vulnerable enough?" but rather "Am I being vulnerable with intention? With the right people? For the right reasons?"

Because the strongest people I know? They're not the ones who expose everything. They're the ones who know the difference between being open.

And being open for business.