WHY VULNERABILITY MAKES US STRONGER
Mina Leslie-Wujastyk in RRG, Photo by Marc Bourguignon
In the past year, several pro athletes have openly talked about mental or physical health issues, problems they have had to face or mental struggles they have had in their life as a professional athlete. To give you some examples, about a year ago, Hannah Schubert, Austrian climber and world cup medalist has openly talked about suffering from a binge eating disorder on Instagram, Mina Leslie-Wujastik just recently published an article on UKC about her diagnose of Functional Hypothalamic Amenorrhoea caused by Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. Double Youth World Champion Claire Buhrfeind has talked about suffering from depression, anxiety and an eating disorder. Sasha diGiulian had written a blog post about her own troubles she’d had with her body image.
Before you keep reading, ask yourself: would you be brave enough to publicly share your story, your problems, doubts, worries and/or mental health issues with others?
I reckon most of us would probably answer with no. Among other things, what distinguishes these climbers from others is their courage to have shared their stories with thousand of others. They are great role models and I believe we can learn a lot from them (not only climbing-related). Having problems or mental health issues often makes us feel ashamed. We might feel like we have failed, we feel vulnerable – and therefore feel scared about sharing our experiences with others.
Why it can be helpful to share our stories with others
I recently read the book “Daring Greatly” (in German: “Verletzlichkeit macht stark”) by Brené Brown. Brené Brown is an American bestselling author, researcher and university lecturer in the field of courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. Her book is easy to read, incredibly insightful and I would definitely recommend you to read it. I will summarise the most important points – and tell you what they have in common with the girls I have talked about before.
As said before, having problems or mental health issues often make us feel ashamed. In my work, I sometimes experience athletes not wanting to openly talk about seeing a psychologist because they don’t want to be perceived as (mentally) weak. I’m not talking about serious mental health issues or psychological disorders such as eating disorders or depression. I’m talking about mental struggles in the life of an athlete that I believe most of us have faced, like a lack of confidence, fear of failure, competition stress etc. They are afraid of being judged by their team mates, coaches or even friends and family. Just the other week, I was approached by a girl who asked for an appointment for her boyfriend – he had felt too ashamed and frightened to ask for help himself. So before I answer the questions why it can be helpful to share our experiences, I want to discuss the following two questions:
Why do we feel ashamed and what are the consequences?
Shame is an innate feeling, and we live in a time where shame is everywhere – I will tell you why in a second. There can be several reasons why or when we experience this emotion:
Every human has a need for love, togetherness, relationship. We want to be part of a group – in fact, people have always suffered from social isolation. However, we often feel that these needs are unjustified and that we haven’t earned “to be loved” or “to be part of a group”. I sometimes work with athletes that feel like they haven’t deserved to be in the national team “because they are not that strong”. Or they feel like “they haven’t deserved that others are nice to them and include them in the group”. We believe we must meet certain criteria in order to become part of a group or to be loved. If we think that we don’t deserve something or we get judged for something that potentially leads to social isolation, we feel ashamed.
What can also make us feel ashamed is our need to belong in first place.
In our culture, we are constantly comparing ourselves or are compared to others. In turn, our self-esteem is increasingly dropping. Social Media platforms are definitely not helpful in this matter. They fuel our fear of being critised or feeling ashamed. On Instagram, we e.g. only see people who show their best side, who are incredibly successful (and seem to be mentally healthy) and who always experience beautiful things only and have this amazing life. This results in us feeling like we are missing out and lack something when we look at it. We feel like "we do not have enough, we don’t have what the other person has, we are not as successful". Having so many possibilities nowadays, makes us feel like we are constantly missing out or lacking something. Even if we have achieved something, there will always be someone else who has achieved more or accomplished more, which in turn, can give us the feeling of not being enough. This feeling is triggered and reinforced by us comparing ourselves to others – with standards that we can’t live up to. Shame arises if we do not succeed, if we do not live up to these standards. Obviously, if we compare ourselves with someone who is unreachable, that feeling of shame will occur more quickly. Being realistic definitely helps.
Shame can also occur when we have done, created or achieved something. For example, when we have achieved a goal, reached the podium or ran a talk in front of many people, we often tend to build our whole self-esteem on these achievements. We define ourselves by these successes. “We are someone because we have won a gold medal, we have achieved something really big.” What happens though, if e.g. our talk gets critised, or if we get injured and do really badly in a follow-up competition? Well, we most probably refer this criticism to ourselves, which, in turn, affects our self-esteem. We feel ashamed, upset, insecure. But it was only the talk that was critised – not us per se. We are so much more than only a talk we have run. And it was only one competition that went badly – our gold medal or other achievements can not be taken away from us. We have more to us than just being a competition climber or a gold medalist. And still… we might feel like we failed as a person.
As said before, since mental health problems or struggles are still tabooed in our society, struggling with them or not being able to deal with a problem ourselves can lead to feeling ashamed, too.
When we feel shame, we often shy away from trying something new and avoid certain situations. Instead of doing something new, we encapsulate ourselves. We are so afraid to be the target of criticism that we do not want to expose ourselves to this criticism. From a scientific perspective, shame has no positive effects, only negative one. It takes away the belief in ourselves that we are able to improve. Shame tells us to “not even try", that "there's no room for improvement". Given the scientific facts, it emphasises the courage of these three girls speaking out loud.
HOW VULNERABILITY HELPS DETER SHAME
Brené Brown suggests that vulnerability makes us stronger. Failing, losing or “being soft” is negatively connoted in our society – particularly in sports (and no, climbing has been no exception). However, vulnerability is neither good nor bad. It means being able to recognise what we feel and accept them. If we just feel and mindfully experience our emotions, we become more open and vulnerable to all emotions – both positive and negative ones. Vulnerability has a lot to do with uncertainty, with emotional exposure and risk. When we e.g. start a relationship with someone, there is always the risk that the love will not be reciprocated or that it will be over at some point. When Hannah decides to share her story publicly on Social Media, there is always the risk of receiving criticism or incomprehension. Same for Mina, Claire or Sasha. Vulnerability means to have the courage to expose yourself to this risk saying, "yes, I deal with problem X, I made mistakes and I share it with others, so they can avoid similar mistakes in the future. And if I will be judged, critised or not understood, it will neither affect me as a person nor my self-esteem, because my whole life doesn’t depend on what others say. This critisism only applies to one small part of what I have done and who I am.” In this context, vulnerability becomes courage, not a weakness. It becomes a strength. It takes an insane strength and courage to face this risk of being criticized or rejected. The person who dares to do that, who puts him-/herself in front of everyone and shares his/her story with everyone publicly, is the real hero. It is incredibly brave and has a lot to do with vulnerability. This person is the target of criticism and dares it anyway.
In fact, when we show vulnerability, most people respond with compassion.
We have to fail, otherwise we will not learn anything new. Being vulnerable makes it possible for us to be criticised, to accept the criticism, but not to attach it to our self-esteem. We can evolve and learn something new. If we resist this vulnerability, we feel ashamed. If we don’t, we will feel relieved. We can better deal with shame and “disarm it”, when we talk about it. The more open we are about it, the less power the shame has – and vice versa. The less we talk about what we are ashamed of, the more power the shame has. Most of the time we are our own biggest critics – not others. We are the ones who are worried the most how we would be valued/judged by others and what they would think. We have to learn to accept ourselves the way we are – we are just perfect. We have to abandon the fear of doing justice to all and everyone, and understand that we are enough.
Removing the mask which hides our emotions, we can benefit from it. Opening ourselves to new things means we can learn and grow. If we take off the mask, we can learn that criticism and failure doesn’t make us less valuable – on the contrary. Especially in sports we are measured by our success and performance. If we don’t perform at a certain level, fulfill external expectations or look a certain way, it often leads to isolation, exclusion of a (national/youth) team (“XY doesn’t fulfill the criteria anymore”) and in the worst case, to someone even stopping the sport. Shame is a negative emotion. However, we can teach others how to handle this shame by showing how to be open and vulnerable; by showing them that they can be as they are.
So, thanks to all these brave, vulnerable girls and boys out there – e.g. Hannah, Mina, Claire, etc. – for sharing your stories and encouraging us to be more open and vulnerable ourselves!