The Risk of Vulnerability (and the Risk of Avoiding It)
- Suzanne Butler
- Jan 18
- 9 min read
On What We Think Vulnerability Is
Vulnerability is often spoken about as though it were a single, deliberate act, something we choose and then step into with intention, as if it were a doorway rather than a condition of being human. We picture it as disclosure, as courage made visible, as the moment when something private is finally brought into the light and named, and because of that we quietly assume it must always be bold, emotionally articulate, and faintly impressive.
But that framing already asks too much of it.
In practice, vulnerability is rarely tidy or declarative, and it almost never arrives with the clarity we expect from it. More often it appears as a subtle disruption to the way we normally hold ourselves, a slight faltering in the voice, a hesitation before the practiced response, a moment when the answer does not come quickly enough and we do not rush to replace it with competence or explanation. It is not so much about revealing something hidden as it is about loosening the grip on what we habitually present.
This is perhaps why vulnerability can feel strangely unwelcome in many of the spaces we inhabit now. We live in a culture that rewards composure, emotional fluency, and a particular kind of resilience, one that values having already done the work somewhere private and arriving ready to function. We are expected to know what we feel, to say it cleanly, and to move on without making things awkward or slow. Strength, in this context, is efficiency. It keeps conversations smooth and relationships manageable.
And yet, for all its usefulness, that kind of strength rarely creates intimacy.
The moments that draw us closer to one another tend to be quieter and less intentional, arising not from what we choose to share but from what we momentarily stop controlling. There is something deeply human in witnessing another person pause, search for words, or admit—without drama—that they do not quite know what they are doing or how they are meant to feel. In those moments, the polished edges soften, and something recognisable passes between us.
Seen this way, vulnerability is not an act of exposure so much as an act of restraint, a willingness to withhold less of ourselves from the space between us. It is not about telling everything, or even telling the truth in its most complete form, but about allowing what is present to be present, without immediately correcting or containing it for the comfort of others.
It is quieter than we imagine, and far less heroic, but it is also the place where connection most often begins.
The Places Where Vulnerability Goes Quiet
There are environments where vulnerability does not disappear entirely, but where it becomes impractical, something that has to be carefully rationed or translated into safer forms. In these spaces, openness is not forbidden, exactly, but it is subtly discouraged by pace, by expectation, by an unspoken agreement that everyone will remain broadly intact. Feelings are allowed as long as they are coherent, self-managed, and preferably resolved before they enter the room.
Over time, the body learns this language even when the mind resists it. The shoulders stay lifted. The voice stays steady. The impulse to soften, to linger, to admit uncertainty is quietly overridden by the need to be functional, capable, and emotionally literate. We learn how to speak about things without actually letting them touch us, how to reference difficulty without becoming porous to it, how to appear open while remaining carefully sealed.
In places where vulnerability is rare, guarding oneself is often an act of care, a way of staying employed, included, or simply unexposed. We adapt because we have to, and the adaptation works well enough that we may not notice what it costs us at first. The mask becomes so familiar that it no longer feels like a mask, just a version of ourselves that knows how to survive certain rooms.
And yet, something in us remembers.
It remembers other kinds of connection, perhaps from earlier relationships, different communities, or brief, unexpected encounters where there was room to arrive unfinished. It remembers conversations that did not need to go anywhere, silences that were not rushed to resolution, moments where not knowing was allowed to breathe between two people without being smoothed over. These memories do not always announce themselves clearly; sometimes they surface as restlessness, irritation, or a vague sense of dissatisfaction that is difficult to pin down.
We may tell ourselves we have outgrown that kind of openness, that it was naïve or situational, something that belonged to a different chapter of life. But often what we are feeling is not maturity so much as longing, a quiet grief for a way of being human together that felt less armoured, less effortful, and more real.
In environments like these, vulnerability does not vanish so much as turn inward. It becomes private, carefully managed, shared only in fragments or not at all. We remain capable, insightful, and composed, while something softer waits patiently beneath the surface, unsure where it might be welcome again.
After the Breaking
Heartbreak has a particular way of reorganising us. It does not always arrive loudly or dramatically; sometimes it seeps in through repetition, disappointment, or the slow realisation that something we were offering freely was not being met in the same spirit. In the aftermath, vulnerability is rarely something we abandon consciously. More often, it is something we refine.
We learn to be careful. We learn to anticipate. We learn which parts of ourselves create friction and which keep things smooth. The openness that once felt natural begins to feel costly, and so we replace it with something more reliable. We become clearer, more boundaried, more self-sufficient. We develop language for our experiences, frameworks for our feelings, and a strong sense of what we will and will not tolerate. From the outside, this can look like growth, and in many ways it is.
But competence has a shadow.
When vulnerability has been met with misunderstanding or harm, the body does not crave more exposure; it craves safety. And safety, for many of us, comes through control. Through knowing the terrain. Through having the answers ready. We become adept at holding ourselves, at meeting our own needs, at not asking for more than can be given. There is dignity in this, and real strength, but it can quietly replace something else. What often recedes is not honesty, but permeability.
We may still share our stories, even our pain, but we do so from a place that is already resolved, already integrated, already one step ahead of the feeling itself. We speak from insight rather than uncertainty, from hindsight rather than presence. The rawness that once allowed another person to meet us in real time is softened, packaged, and made safer for everyone involved. This is understandable. It is also lonely.
Because vulnerability, in its relational form, is not about telling the truth once it no longer hurts. It is about allowing ourselves to be seen while we are still orienting, still unsure, still without a clear narrative. It is the courage to let someone witness the moment before the answer arrives, if it arrives at all.
After heartbreak, this can feel like an unreasonable ask. We tell ourselves that we should know better by now, that uncertainty is a phase we have already passed through, that needing others in this way is a step backwards rather than an opening. And so we become strong in ways that are admirable and isolating in equal measure.
The tragedy is not that we protect ourselves, but that we sometimes mistake protection for connection, and competence for closeness. In doing so, we may remain intact, even impressive, while missing the quieter intimacy that once made being known feel possible.
The Courage to Not Know
We often speak about vulnerability as though it requires revelation, as though its primary task were to bring something hidden into view. But in lived experience, the more demanding form of vulnerability is not disclosure; it is uncertainty. It is the willingness to remain present without the scaffolding of explanation, insight, or emotional resolution, and to allow that state to be witnessed by another person.
Not knowing unsettles the social field. It interrupts the flow of conversation and resists the unspoken demand to be coherent, helpful, and self-contained. When we admit, even quietly, that we are unsure how we feel or what we need, we risk being perceived as ungrounded or incomplete. And yet, it is often in these moments that something real becomes possible between people.
Relational vulnerability does not ask us to lay everything bare. It asks something subtler and, in many ways, more difficult: that we stay in contact while the outcome is still unclear. That we resist the urge to tidy our experience into a story that makes sense, and instead allow another person to meet us in the unshaped space where things are still forming. This kind of courage does not announce itself. It feels more like standing still when every instinct says to move on.
There is a particular humility in letting go of competence in this way. So much of our social value is tied to having perspective, offering insight, or being able to hold ourselves together in a way that reassures others. To step out of that role, even briefly, can feel like a small undoing. We worry about becoming a burden, about asking too much, about revealing a need that cannot be neatly met.
But connection does not grow from our ability to manage ourselves flawlessly. It grows from moments of mutual orientation, when neither person is quite sure where things are going and both are willing to remain. In these moments, vulnerability becomes less about exposure and more about trust, less about risk-taking and more about allowing the relational field to deepen at its own pace.
This is why vulnerability is not synonymous with honesty, even though honesty is part of it. We can be entirely truthful and still remain defended, speaking from a place of mastery rather than contact. Vulnerability begins when we allow our truth to be incomplete, when we let ourselves be seen not as finished beings but as people in motion, shaped in real time by what is unfolding between us.
It is a quieter bravery than we are used to celebrating, and one that rarely looks impressive. But it is also the kind of courage that makes room for genuine meeting, the kind that cannot be forced or performed, only allowed.
A Quiet Remembering
Perhaps what we miss, when vulnerability becomes rare, is not the act itself but the atmosphere it creates. A sense of being able to arrive as we are, without first translating ourselves into something efficient or resolved. A feeling of being met rather than managed, witnessed rather than assessed. These experiences tend to linger in the body long after the details fade, not because they were intense or dramatic, but because they allowed us to rest our guard for a moment.
In environments shaped by pace, productivity, and emotional self-sufficiency, it can begin to feel as though vulnerability belongs to the past or to more intimate spaces than the ones we now inhabit. We may assume that we have simply grown out of it, that life has made us more discerning, more realistic, less inclined to risk what cannot be guaranteed. But often what is happening is quieter than that. We are adapting, and in adapting, we are carrying a subtle grief for a way of relating that once felt more alive.
This grief does not always ask to be resolved. Sometimes it is simply a signal, a reminder of what matters to us beneath our competence and composure. It points to a longing for connection that is not built on strength or certainty, but on the shared willingness to be unfinished in one another’s presence. Not all spaces can hold this, and not all people will meet us there, but that does not make the longing itself naïve or misplaced.
Vulnerability, in this sense, is less about changing how we behave and more about remembering what we recognise when we encounter it. We know it by the way the body softens, by the way conversation slows, by the quiet relief of not having to perform coherence for a moment. These are not grand experiences, but they are deeply human ones.
Perhaps it is enough, for now, to notice where we feel this softening, where we feel the ache of its absence, and where we sense the possibility of it returning in small, unguarded ways. Not as a strategy or a practice, but as a quality of presence that emerges when we allow ourselves to be slightly less defended and a little more available to what is already here.
In remembering this, we are not asking to become vulnerable everywhere or with everyone. We are simply acknowledging that connection does not come from strength alone, and that sometimes the most meaningful moments of meeting arise when we let ourselves be seen without quite knowing what comes next.
Ready to go deeper into healing and intentional growth through tarot? Explore The Healing Journey, our step-by-step guided experience for transformation.
Liked this piece? Follow me for more soulful tarot reflections, healing frameworks, and tools for intuitive growth. Or visit www.the-healing-tarot.com to explore our courses and offerings.
#tarot #vulnerability #spiritualgrowth #tarotcommunity #loveandlight #healingtarot #openheart
Comments