Vulnerability IS the way

I wrote down some random notes when this idea cam to me, and I kind of love how they read. So rather than simply expansing them into a final piece, I'm going to comment on them as they were originally written.

need = vulnerability = connection with a giver

To need is to be vulnerable. There is no way around that. Hiding those needs doesn't make us strong, resiliant, or independant. It makes us vulnerable to all the wrong things. To emotional exhaustion, fear, self-doubt, doubting God, fear of the future, regret, hopelesness... I'm sure the list is endless. I've been there, and anyone who has tried to survive a storm without a "someone" has, too.

The thing is, when we choose, in that time or stance of need, to lean into the kind of vulnerability that exposes our need to a trusted, safe person, something incredible happens. Connection. It isn't as simple as, "I need gasoline," and then going to a gas station. When we are in a place of emotional or even practical need, reaching out to someone who we trust to know our story actually forms or strengthens the human bond we have with them.

where there is expressed need, there becomes connection

Needing affirmation in doubt, encouragement in fear, advice in confusion, or comfort in grief, and then actually asking for those things or at least exposing those needs to someone who would willingly give, binds us to them in that moment. And the lasting effect is so much more than meeting the need! It is not just a simple exchange. It is a profound moment of human connection.

Silent suffering invites no one into our story. But expressing needs does, and the result is that the people we trust come to have buy-in in our lives. And that's not all. We are actually created to need others to fill out needs.

God built us to need eachother to drive us toward each other

In the book, "People Fuel," John Townsend talks about how God programmed this into us - the need for each other. He could have created us to rely exclusively on ourselves, but He knew we needed to need Him. And at that point we could have been wired to only get our needs met through Him directly - pray, and miraculously recieve what we need. But I don't know if you've noticed... it doesn't often happen that way. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it's a bigger tax return than you thought, or a wash of comfort straight from Him when you needed it. But usually it comes from reaching out and connecting with someone who has the capacity to fill our needs, or them reaching out to us.

But our needs, by and large, exist to drive us into relationship. To form community. The cord of three strands and all of that. It's not just hardwired into our basic psychology, it is reinforced by the inevitibility of human needs and our inability to be truly self-sufficient.

I've also discovered that having a community around us isn't just something we do to meet our needs... our needs reinfornce our need for community. And choosing the vulnerability required to expose those needs is our step in forming that vital community.

asking for our needs to be met brings us OUT OF ISOLATION

Things like grief, fear, and hopelessness are isolating. I can tell you this with certainty. And that isolation will last as long as we let it. But the moment we throw up our hands, wave the white flag, and admit we can't continue this way, continue on our own, that isolation is broken. We fear being needy people, but guess what? We are. So is everyone else. And chances are the only thing standing between our isolation and our being swept up into deep connection is us.

So, learn how to speak your needs - find them, name them, show them to someone (this can and should be a pretty gradual process). This may include telling your trusted friend that it scares the heck out of you to confide in them - that's a need! Learn how to trust people - build relationships of trust, cultivate them, know who can bear the weight of your story. And then walk in the beautiful, terrifying, and ultimately reassuring practice of vulnerability, and you'll find that life alone and sheilded is not as safe as it sounds. It's much more vulnerable, with very few safeguards.

My last thought is this: if we are only ever exposing the loveable parts of ourselves - the strong, confident, safe side - then that is the only side that will recieve love and relationship. The part we hide - the part most in need of love - will be shielded from it. And we will never know and all-the-way kind of relationship with anyone at all. Choosing to share our needs allows that part of us to be accessed and loved and find belonging.

Photo by nikko macaspac on Unsplash