The courage in expressing vulnerability

Fiona: 00:02

We often think of wellbeing as one-dimensional. What if we look at it from a different perspective?

Josephine: 00:08

The possibilities are endless. All we have to do is step outside the square.

Let's walk this walk together and hold on tight for the ride.

Fiona: 00:16

My name is Fiona. I'm a corporate wellness facilitator, body image and eating psychology coach and a lover of joyful experiences.

Josephine: 00:24

And I'm Josephine, a dietitian, somatic release therapist and a recovering people pleaser and perfectionist.

Fiona and Josephine: 00:30

Welcome to Outside the Square.

Fiona: 00:35

Welcome back. This is an exciting episode because today we are rounding out our season one of Outside the Square.

Josephine: 00:50

We are and today we're talking about a topic that is very close to both of our hearts and it is vulnerability and the courage that it takes to be vulnerable. One, with ourselves and two, with others, and of course one has to come before two, so it will touch on a whole of the things we've talked about this episode, really getting in touch with yourself, and we want to hold this sacred space for you to reflect on how you're going doing that.

Fiona 1:21

It's one of those things I think that underpins all of the things that we've been talking about this season and I want to recognise everyone who has listened and who has tried any of the suggestions or exercises or tools that we have discussed, you have already started being vulnerable by doing that. By having a go, you have already been courageous by thinking about things in a different way to the way that you might have thought about them before, so you're already on this vulnerability and courage journey and it really does touch on everything.

So I would love to hear because one of the things that you just said before Josephine was around how we can be vulnerable, we need to be vulnerable with ourselves and be vulnerable with others. So can you tell me a little bit more about what that means for you?

Josephine 2:27

In my personal journey, vulnerability felt really hard and when I first started doing this inner work of understanding myself and my emotions, often I didn't know my own emotions to be vulnerable with other people, like I had to be vulnerable with myself first, and I had this sense that I was walking around like I was wearing a mask of I'm okay. Everything's okay. I'm doing okay. Everything's fine.’

But it really wasn't and so for me, that pivotal moment was when I had my son and I had to be still on maternity leave and emotions started to come through the surface and I realised, wow I'm actually an anxious person, this anxiety is here all the time, but yet I still, I had to accept that and feel that for quite a long time, you know six months even, maybe even a year, three years before I told people like my own mum that actually I have anxiety because it took all those years to unpack it and realised that that I do feel this all the time. It's a transient emotion that comes through me and I'm okay with that, it doesn't mean that I'm any less of a person because I do feel anxiety some days. Some days more than others and therefore it's okay to show up as someone who says, ‘I'm feeling anxious about this’ to someone else.

Fiona: 03:57

I totally relate with that and I think sometimes it is those big moments that can really push us into that space of vulnerability and learning about ourselves, so for some people there are sliding door kind of moments where you could go one way or you could go the other and there's often a really big lesson in that. Those transition times in our lives so as you say, when you had your son, that's a huge transition piece for you.

One of my first clients, we did an intense six months of work over the time where she turned 50 during that six months, so there was a really big transition for her in moving into a new decade. For me, it was when my mother passed away, that was when I finally got diagnosed properly with anxiety so it wasn't until after that that I had that same reflection and was able to work through that more deeply, so I think sometimes those big transitional moments or periods can be an important opportunity to be vulnerable with yourself and really look at that.

Josephine: 05:10

Yeah, and there's been a few questions that I often ask myself since that pivotal moment. One being, ‘Am I truly expressing myself? Does this person that I care about, whether it's a partner, a friend, a family member, do they actually know what's going on for me?’ and so often to start with the answer was no. I was the cope-er, my parents said I'm the one that always lands on my feet, and friends would say you're the person who always finds your people, but it wasn't the truth. I had this facade of coping, I was very good at, I mean coping isn't thriving. It was the mask, so I find it really useful to ask that question ‘do people authentically know what's happening for me?’ quite regularly and just check in with how I'm going with that, is the mask back on because it's going to change from day to day how open your heart is to actually share what's going on for you and other days you're in a place where you're still trying to figure it out yourself and that's okay too.

Fiona: 06:16

I think a lot of people will resonate with that sort of sense of coping or that sense of what other people see versus what's truly happening. For me it's important to say we're also not saying you need to share everything with everybody. If we think back to our energy episode and some of the questions we had about those people or those relationships that might drain us versus those that sustain us, that vulnerability piece or that authenticity piece isn't about sharing everything with everybody, but as you say, it is about feeling authentic and having those people who are those important ones know and understand what that authenticity is and that you're showing up authentically, and that you're showing up authentically even in those spaces with the people who might drain you or those other spaces where you might not share everything, but you can still be authentic.

Josephine: 07:19

Yeah, absolutely and there will be people in your life who invite vulnerability just by the energy that they bring to an interaction, maybe hanging out with them that you are able to be more vulnerable. and, yeah, those connections are really special if there's someone that does invite vulnerability that you feel safe to be more vulnerable than with others.

Fiona: 07:43

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that you mentioned just before was not always understanding or knowing or being able to name what's going on for you. So you might say ‘okay, I would really like to try and be more authentic or show up differently.’ It might be ‘I want to ask for help or I would like to express my needs’ or just ‘I'd like to let someone know how how I'm feeling.’ We don't always have the words for that.

That can be a really important first step is to actually think about ‘what is it that I'm feeling, what is it that I need, and what are those words’ because that can be really challenging to actually put a name to what's going on for you so we've done a lot of work around grounding, around feeling sensation in our body, around being able to process from that space, but when we're inviting or bringing someone else into that relationship, it's not enough just to feel that sensation or that emotion ourselves. Sometimes there's a need to express what that emotion is and what's going on for us and one of the tools I find really helpful to help name our emotions is the Feelings Wheel. We’ll pop it up onto the Instagram grid so that you can have a look at the visual. It's a great little wheel that has all of these different levels of feelings and it names them so it allows you to start putting a language and some words around what you are feeling so that you can express that to someone rather than often that freeze that just sort of happens when we go like ‘I'd like to be vulnerable but I don't know how to say how I'm feeling.’

Josephine: 09:37

And sometimes it just starts with saying ‘I'm feeling off’ or ‘I'm feeling bad today’ rather than when someone asks how you are just saying ‘yeah I'm good’ without even formulating an answer that just comes out about now, so yeah, I love the Feelings Wheel that's been on my wall for about 10 years even before I started going deep for this work I knew that was going to come in handy. So you can start with ‘I’m feeling bad’ and expressing that and see what support comes back and then over time, using something like the Feelings Wheel you might become far more specific and shaping how you communicate that.

Fiona: 10:12

I love also that vulnerability or that courage to actually say how you're feeling or to ask for help or sometimes just to share a story of how you were feeling previously, that is a really courageous act.

Josephine: 10:29

Because how often do we share our negative self-talk? You just don't hear it at a book club or a coffee group, someone voicing ‘I'm useless, I'm disgusting, I feel like such a pig.’ We don't say those things aloud. We're much more likely as women to get together and have and connect in a way where we share our problems which it becomes a bit of a bitch session, and while that can be really enjoyable to connect and that we've all got messy houses and things that are out of control or partners or friends or colleagues who have done wrongs to us and to share those as a way of connecting, but it's not actually sharing what's going on for you. It's sharing almost sharing a layer of distraction of the vulnerable and the courageous things that you could share. What's happening underneath when your partner or your colleagues wrong you is that you might feel rejected or abandoned or not enough, but we often don't go to that depth of how it's making us feel.

Fiona: 11:40

Yeah it is something that brings us together because we've all had those sorts of experiences, from something as simple as ‘oh gosh, my husband didn’t do the dishes again last night. It’s so frustrating.’ and everyone goes ‘yes, oh my gosh, well my husband doesn't do this and my husband doesn't do that.’ and we sit in that space rather than bringing some curiosity and some vulnerability to that. It may seem like a really simple thing ‘oh my husband didn't do the dishes.’ but the feeling that comes underneath that as you say, might actually be something that that person needs to express or talk about.

Josephine: 12:17

Yeah and I think in those situations, one thing we're looking for is to be validated by our female friend or the group or male friend of it who you're talking to, but when you are authentically sharing your emotions, often the most appropriate response from the other person is just silence. Whereby, it doesn't matter what they say or what they think, you are just saying what is true to you without needing to be validated, you just want it to be heard. You don't want help, you don't want a solution in fact, being given a solution might be really irritating because you're just at the point where you're understanding and you're saying something aloud to make it real.

Fiona: 12:57

Yeah. One of the first steps of being able to be more vulnerable and more courageous is to be if you're not at a point where you can express exactly what you need yet or you can ask someone for something specific in terms of help or support, it can just be when you enter a conversation saying to someone, ‘I just need you to listen right now’ or ‘hey I'd like your advice on this once I finish asking the question’ or expressing what it is you want out of that conversation because I certainly know I've been in conversations before where I've shared everything that's going on and the person who I've shared with is absolutely wanting to support and goes straight into fixer mode – ‘well, have you tried this and have you done this and what about this’ and that just frustrates me because I know what the solution is, I just need to talk it through.

So if I can be clear when going into that interaction to say to that person ‘could you just listen? Could you just be here?’ that's a vulnerable space to be for both of us because I'm asking that person potentially to do something a little bit different to what they would do so I'm challenging them to hold my emotions without fixing, which for a lot of us is really hard, particularly for people that we love we want to try and help fix and solve what's going on for them or help them feel better, so I'm challenging that person I'm also challenging myself to actually express that need and creating a container where I can ask for what it is that I want.

Josephine: 14:49

I think if you're the one who's being vulnerable you are in your power, right? There's this internal power there and you're actually not looking for external validation of what you're feeling, you are owning the feeling by saying it aloud, it's like a playful or curiousness of like ‘what does it like to say this aloud? Does it feel right? Does it actually match how I'm feeling if I make it real in the, by saying this aloud right now?’ and if someone can just hold space for you to say it aloud and yeah, nod, agree, ‘that must be hard for you’ then so much more is going to come out of your mouth and you actually in real time get to explore what's happening for you without being shut down with the fixer mode.

Fiona: 15:34

And I think before we can do that, before we can start taking those steps is to be vulnerable with ourselves to build that trust within ourselves, because if we're going to start asking or voicing our needs even as simple as in a conversation ‘I don't want a solution from you. Could you just sit and listen to me?’ that can be really hard because we don't always know what's going to happen from the other person, but we can't do that with other people until we've done it with ourselves. You have to be able to have that time to be with yourself first.

Josephine: 16:14

Yeah, absolutely and a tip I like to give to my clients when I'm holding space for them, and so please do this if you're holding space for yourself, is to know that feelings aren't rational. It doesn't need to make sense. You get to feel however you're feeling without making sense of why and I think that's so important because often we say ‘I’m feeling overwhelmed, but that's just how it is right now’ or ‘I'm feeling like a failure’ and then we have some reason to discount that really quickly. ‘I feel like a failure, but I'm just going to get over that.’ and no, there's no buts it's just - allow yourself to feel like a failure, allow yourself to feel the overwhelm and honestly give yourself a space to just be valid in that and it's going to dissipate because if there is a but and you move on too quickly, it just keeps coming back up and rearing its head.

Like you haven't addressed it, you haven't accepted that this is where you're at and given it that space to move through you and you're doing yourself with a huge disservice if you think that your emotions have to make sense or be put in a box or have a clear reason, they might just be and that's okay.

Fiona: 17:35

Yeah, you've just reminded me of a time I was talking with my sister at once and I'd had this interaction and I was upset and I was like ‘that was a really shit thing that just happened’ and at the same time as saying that to her, I was like ‘oh, well I'm just upset, I got my period this week and then this also didn't happen and this is also going on for me, so actually this thing really, it's not this thing I'm upset about, it's actually all the other stuff.’ And my sister said to me ‘no, it's a shitty thing that just happened and you're allowed to be upset about that thing regardless of all the other stuff that's going on.’ You don't have to minimise your feelings. They can be irrational. It's okay to be over upset about something for a little while.

Josephine: 18:28

Mmm, I often tell my clients like, pre-menstruation when your emotions are heightened or pre-full moon when your emotions are heightened, your emotions are you super power, like express them for the month. Get really into it, feel it with the depth of your soul because you've actually got that extra juice, those extra hormones to be able to express what emotions we are told are irrational, but they're not, they're meant to be expressed, especially at those potent times.

And there's so many excuses in society that we use for not making our emotions be appropriate, and I think the biggest one for me was being an employer. So I employed staff for about seven years and the most memorable phrase I heard from a staff member was, basically she was saying ‘why can't you be more vulnerable?’ and in my head, my response was ‘well, because I'm the employer, I've got to be professional, I've got to keep my emotions hidden because they don't matter, because this is a professional space and what matters is the staff being heard and my emotions don't matter’ but that is so not true, there's always way to share some of your emotions even if it's just an ‘I feel overwhelmed too’ statement, that is still a very professional statement to share and I could have been sharing so much more of myself with the team, but because I thought I had to be the professional employer, I got into this pattern of wearing the mask all the time and not being authentic in my own business and yeah, if I had that journey again now, it would be just so different.

So I challenge you in the workplace to also consider where you're wearing a mask and where it might be appropriate to share an I feel statement where you’d never dream, where you never would have dreamed of doing it before.

Fiona: 20:30

You can hold vulnerability and professionalism in the same space and I think it's about finding that balance. We don't have to share everything with everybody, but showing up authentically is really important.

Josephine: 20:48

Yeah, there's a tool called Heartfelt Communication that I know you use Fiona and I use too to teach the clients and that's where you can name your emotion and just have someone listen and it's really valuable in conflict resolution, both in businesses or between partners or even friendships as well whereby you just name how you're feeling and again there's no validation needed, there's no solution needed, there's just getting it out as a form of communication and if we're doing that in the workplace, then conflicts are so much easier to manage. That if people know that there's a feeling here and we don't necessarily need to change anything we don't need to agree with it, but there's just a feeling and to understand that there's a human on the other end feeling something that may or may not make sense but we're going to hold space for it anyway means that conflicts would look really different in the workplace or in partnerships and friendships.

Fiona: 21:50

Hmm absolutely. The other day I was talking in a group coaching call around a misalignment with myself, so I have as I've shared before on the podcast, a lot of social anxiety and for a long time, I would, someone invited me somewhere or there was a group outing or I had to go out somewhere and I didn't want to go because I was feeling anxious about it, I would lie. I would just say ‘oh, I've got something else on, I'm so sorry I'm not available’ I would come up with these little things and that allowed me to feel like there was acceptance of my ‘no I can't come’ without having someone trying to fix the anxious feelings and it meant that I could get away without having to do the thing or go out to the thing and without having to explain myself and without having to be judged, and I realised that those little lies were no longer aligning with me.

So I'd done it recently for an outing and I couldn't decide on the excuse as to why I couldn't go to this thing and I realised that I couldn't decide on an excuse because I didn't want to use an excuse anymore, and so I said to the person organising it, I actually just had a conversation with them and I just said ‘this is actually the reason’ and they said ‘I totally get it and that's totally fine’ and ‘thanks for sharing’ and just that sense of relief for me around ‘oh I can actually be authentic and vulnerable and people are going to be able to be understanding of that’ and not necessarily question it and go deeper and go further, but it was a moment where I realised that it was no longer aligning with me.

That's where there's also an opportunity to be brave and to be vulnerable and to be courageous with ourselves is to notice those moments. You know if we go back to thinking about our values, we were talking about values last week and knowing your values, when you know your values, you really deeply get to know them, you will start having that little voice, that questions, some of those moments where you're going to do something or you're going to take a decision or you're going to say something to someone and that's going to say ‘is this really what you want?’ It might be just a feeling of discomfort that comes so for me it was ‘why am I feeling uncomfortable? Why can't I decide what lie I'm going to tell about why I can't go to this event?’

Those are the moments to pay attention because those are the moments that are telling you something's not aligning with what you truly value here and you have an opportunity in those moments to come back to yourself with love and with openness and with vulnerability and with courage to ask ‘What is going on here? What do I need to do next?’ and for me after I voiced it, I had a feeling of shame and guilt that came from all the lies I had previously told about why I couldn't go to things and that was really hard and at the same time I was able to recognise and say to myself ‘that kept you safe in those moments and that was when you needed to feel safe and you can change that from now.’ so instead of feeling shameful or guilty about those times where I'd said to people ‘oh I've got something on’ when actually I didn't, rather than feeling guilt about that, I can change that narrative moving forward and that's the part that I can change and that's the vulnerability part and the courage part.

Josephine: 25:41

So powerful and it’s really why, that you have to come to peace with those emotions within yourself before you can show up and express your ‘actually I don't want to come today, I can’t I need to sleep or I'm feeling anxious’ and actually the other person's emotional response is not your concern at that point. It was lovely that you did get a beautiful supportive response from the person you shared with but equally if their emotional response was ‘I don't really get it, that's ridiculous’ or if they’d got really angry that you'd let them down, we can also sit in this power of knowing their emotional response is theirs not mine. That's something going on for them and it's okay because they want to have a negative reaction to my authentic need as well so it is incredibly courageous to start voicing your truth because you don't know how someone else is going to react and you have to be really okay with anything that comes back.

Fiona: 26:43

Yep, yeah and to just sit knowing your truth and holding space for their emotions as well, allowing that to happen, allowing them to have their response and knowing that that's not about you, that that is in fact about them.

Josephine: 26:58

Such a beautiful example how we just brush over these little truths as if they don't matter, but if you can bring your awareness to those times where you do brush your needs aside or glaze over the truth of what's actually going on for you, then it's going to be really fruitful exploration into your emotions and your needs and see how you can express yourself differently moving forward.

Fiona: 27:26

And I think for me, as we think about rounding out season one of our beautiful podcast, we have had such valuable conversations over the last eight weeks about courage and vulnerability overall.

So if we think about all the topics we've talked about, we have talked about those self-care moments, we have talked about those grounding practices and listening to your energy, we've talked about inner child and that's so important when we talk about vulnerability and courage. We’ve talked about overwhelm, we've shared all sorts of different stories and tips and tricks and tools, but the theme that runs under all of them is the bravery and the courage to give it a try and the vulnerability that comes from doing that and the power in that is transformational. It can change your life. It really can, by having a go, by thinking about things in a slightly different way, by trying something new, by getting up again when you know, something doesn't work and giving something else a go, and by sitting and really listening and learning about you.

That is vulnerability. That is courage, and that can change your life.

Josephine: 29:03

Thank you for allowing us to be vulnerable and expressive over this season and share with you.

Fiona: 29:10

It has been a wonderful, wonderful journey. We are so grateful for you for listening. We are so grateful for all of your comments and all of your messages. We love to hear them please continue to send them through if you have questions, with us on our Outside the Square podcast Instagram page. Thank you, Josephine for being a fabulous podcast partner these past eight weeks. What a journey it has been.

Josephine: 29:44

Yeah, I could not have done it without you Fiona. It’s been a wild ride and, it's been so well received that we think we'll be back for season two so stay tuned.

Fiona: 29:56

Stay tuned. We're not coming anywhere, well we are going somewhere but we'll be back.

Josephine: 30:00

Bye for now.

Josephine: 30:03

Before we finish up for today, we would like to acknowledge the original custodians of the lands on which our podcast is created, the Ngāi Tahu people of Aotearoa New Zealand,

Fiona: 30:12

and the Cammeraygal people of the Eora Nation Australia. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and to all our listeners who identify as Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander, or Maori.

Josephine: 30:25

We love connecting with you, our listeners and talking about the topics that mean the most to you. Reach out to us on Instagram at Outside the Square Podcast and let us know what you want to hear more of.

Fiona: 30:35

So until next time, keep stepping outside your square.

Josephine: 30:39

Today's episode, I'd like to dedicate to Kath Wright, a friend of mine who always knew how to ask vulnerable questions, who asked me questions about myself and my plans for the future in a way that I could actually answer them, and who tragically is no longer with us. So today’s for you Kath.