I think about this stuff quite a bit these days and Clem Bastow’s article in Daily Life is so sweetly optimistic:
We’ve all been there: we open up too much on a date, or tell a personal story at a dinner party, or write a heartfelt blog that feels hideously raw when we look back at it a week later and rush to delete it. We’re gripped by regret, and vow to keep a lid on it next time. After all, nobody likes an over-sharer. Have some decorum. We feel the regret because we’re taught that vulnerability is something we should be ashamed of.
So what do you do about persistent vulnerability hangovers? You may or may not be surprised to find that I think the best remedy is to keep sharing – and I’m pretty sure Dr Brown would agree with me.
I have been thinking about this a lot too. I happened upon those Brené Brown talks on a day when I happened to be experiencing a vulnerability hangover, and have been thinking of them ever since.
Oh god, I do that to myself all the time. It gets to the point where being social is exhausting because I spend the whole time navigating that line between when to share and when to keep my damn mouth shut. And then I second-guess myself forever afterwards. Ugh.
Can I just say that as a loyal reader, I don’t think you ever over-share, your sharing is one of the things I love best about your writing, one of the aspects that inspires me most as a fellow writer.
I feel this way every time one of my parents reads my blog – no matter the content of the post, but particularly the “overshare-y” ones. Invariably they ring me up querying the state of my mental health, and I regret horribly first, writing the post, then, having a blog. But then I do it again!
Thanks for this link. In the past few weeks, I’ve been noticing that my head is full of this anxiety-producing detritus leftover from stupid shit I’ve said and done. Some of it’s quite old. My impulse is always to admonish myself that I should shut myself up, since clearly I still don’t know what one does and does not say, so I’m intrigued by Bastow’s suggestion that the cure is actually the opposite, to share more, be more open.
I so needed this post. Thank you. As I get older now in my mid 30′s, I find myself sharing more with my close friends, and people I can trust and well maybe those not so much. I feel these vulnerabilty hangovers then beat myself up in my head for oversharing. I believe in self-reflection, and finding meaning. Sometimes being vulnerable allows me to push myself a little deeper and evolve more as a person. I look forward to the day that I can disclose and feel empowered.
I love and admire when people ‘overshare’ with confidence, I often wish I could.
[...] Via Blue Milk, Clem Bastow at Daily Life discusses the vulnerability hangover. According to Brené Brown, a vulnerability hangover is “the feeling that sweeps over us after we feel the need to connect … and we share something deeply meaningful. Minutes, hours, or days later, we begin to feel regret sweep over us like a warm wave of nausea.” Oh yes, there are days — weeks! — I seem to live in that sea of nauseous regret. Why on Earth do I have a blog, then, you may wonder? Well, so do I, and often. Bastow, however, believes that the only cure for the fear that one has shared too much … is to share more. [...]
I believe wholeheartedly in the power and importance of vulnerability. I value the deeply personal things that people write and share with me or converse and share with me – all of it. And although I find it so horrifyingly difficult to post about some of the stuff I’m blogging about, either on my personal journal or my blog, I keep getting tiny snippets of feedback that affirm the need for sharing and for connection in this way. For learning about one another and negotiating the world and our lives together. In the past two weeks I’ve written about bravery, about relationships as an over-arching concept, about confronting inhibition, about spaces and spacemaking and just now about the most recent fear spike I’m trying hard to navigate and am filled with *all the feelings* about. And yet… despite the hardness of hitting post, I believe in that vulnerability and that it is that space, which allows me to move forward and let go, to learn and grow myself. Hopefully… it helps someone else who reads it, has them think or understand something a little better…. something. I’m really interested in your thoughts about this and am sorry this comment is so muddled!