Mar 8

Mar 8 On the Vulnerability Hangover

I recently told an audience of around 700 people a very personal and embarrassing story. It was a story about a time in my life that I was so low and so lost, even though it corresponded with one of my greatest life achievements: the day I successfully completed my PhD.

I didn’t just tell a story. As a consultant, naturally my talk was accompanied by a deck, which included visuals of myself. Essentially inoffensive goofy pictures of me. My colleagues told me they was a great choice because it made me look ‘fun’. (Spoiler alert: I am very fun. I literally have unicorn stickers on my work computer.)

Why did I do this? Why did I share so much of myself in front of 700 work colleagues who were surely judging me for admitting weakness and fallibility? Well… I was trying to use my vulnerability as a tool to teach and help others deal with the Impostor Syndrome.

Okay, so it actually went pretty well and I got a lot of really nice feedback. So why have I been laying awake in bed at night picking apart every little thing that I said, questioning if it was the right thing to do? Why have I been wondering if I made a horrible mistake by being so vulnerable to people who simply can’t be vulnerable back because they were mostly strangers on the other side of a Skype call?

Welcome to the Vulnerability Hangover.

So what is a vulnerability hangover? The vulnerability hangover is that feeling of ‘oh my god, what did I just do’ that comes after being vulnerable and sharing your experience. The term vulnerability hangover was coined by Dr. Brene Brown (or as I like to call her, Brene, as we’re basically best friends at this point… in my head), originating from her work on shame.

Brene defines vulnerability as “the feeling we get during times of uncertainty, risk, or emotional exposure. This includes times when we’re showing our feelings and we’re not sure what people will think and times when we really care about something and people will know that we’re sad or disappointed when it doesn’t work out”.

Brene stresses that it takes true strength and courage to be vulnerable – counterfactual to the common perception that strength is akin to invulnerability. The benefits of vulnerability are that we get to be closer to our most authentic self, help others, and do a better job connecting, which ultimately leads to greater well-being, (or as Brene puts it, wholeheartedness).

Being vulnerable opens ourselves up to judgement, and potentially to the deeply raw sensation of shame. Shame, according to Brene, is “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging”. Opening yourself up to others, to strangers, to anyone with the capacity to form an opinion, is scary because they can respond by telling you that your true self is flawed or that you are undeserving of fitting in. Goodness knows people on the internet can be mean.

So there I sat in the days following my talk, in the depths of my vulnerability hangover, wondering… where should I go from here? Luckily, psychology has some answers to blunt the pain of feeling like we’ve extended ourselves too far. I’ve compiled the following for anyone facing a similar issue.

Tips For Anyone Facing a Vulnerability Hangover.

In order to combat it, we need to look at vulnerability hangover symptoms and see what we can do to take back control from these feelings that aren’t serving us!

Step Away From The Platform

Having been vulnerable in a mixed medium setting that included online, I could easily have kept digging, figuring out who was in the presentation versus online, and asking for feedback. Yes, feedback is important to get better, but perhaps not as productive in the face of the raw feelings of vulnerability hangover. If you shared online, consider signing out of your account, shutting down over the weekend, or not checking the stats. Get some space!

Change it Up

That feeling of going over and over everything in your head? Redirect your attention. Meet up with a friend, go to the gym, do something you love. Things will settle.

Question the Inner Critic

Question any voices in your head or stories you are telling yourself saying you made a mistake. Was there a logical justification why you agreed to share in the first place? Revisit that. Ask yourself – are those people actually judging you, or are you just afraid that they might? Remember to tell yourself that you did a good thing, because by opening yourself up to connection, you did!

Keep it Up

Dr. Brene Brown tells us that if you don’t feel the vulnerability hangover… you’re probably not going far enough. Keep sharing. Keep inspiring others to share. I was determined to help my colleagues and start a much-needed conversation. Mission accomplished. The vulnerability hangover was worth it.

I’ll keep testing out these tactics – does anyone else out there have any they want to share?

Finally, in case I needed another reason why I did this, here is my favourite piece of feedback from the session: