“Love is an exchange of vulnerabilities.”
—William H. Masters

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to be emotionally vulnerable.

Vulnerability means trusting yourself and another person.  It means that you’re exposed to the pain of disappointment, rejection, being misunderstood.

It’s the last thing I would choose to step into —  yet, without vulnerability, we’re left with twisted relationships based on the kind of thinly-disguised, infantile rage that’s so on display in politics these days. (I’m thinking in particular of baby-faced Newt Gingrich, who’s betrayed most of the people who got close to him.)

The Emotional Risk of Public Speaking

Ironically, vulnerability is also critical to public speaking.  If you’re not able to bring yourself to the stage, to take the risk of showing who you really are, your audience can’t truly fall in love with you — or with your ideas.

So yeah, vulnerability rocks.

We need it, and we all need to increase our tolerance for it.

Yuck.