In spring 2016, I conducted a series of interviews with a small group of my friends and peers about the topic of vulnerability: how they define it, how it affects their life and their relationships, how it may be a tool, an obstacle, or simultaneously both. Following a few of these interviews, I asked the interviewee to free-write about vulnerability, using as many visual terms as possible. Pulling imagery from these writings, I tried to create a portrait of each person that reflected their unique conception of vulnerability. The following portraits and quotes are an excerpt of the results.
Could you define vulnerability for yourself? Is it a skill, a reaction, something else?
I would say it looks like being honest and forthcoming with someone. It means accessing deeper-seated emotions, typically hidden in surface interactions. Often, it takes the form of talking, but I think you can also be vulnerable in ways other than conversation. You can be vulnerable in what you perform, and other ways of sharing part of yourself.
What situations make you feel most vulnerable? Has this changed over time?
I’m thinking about vulnerability in multiple ways right now. In a positive way, things that make me feel vulnerable: being on stage. It's become a really powerful way I cultivate vulnerability in my life. In a way, when you’re on stage, in a dance context, you’re giving yourself, but the audience isn’t giving you something in return, so it isn’t a balanced relationship. Whereas when I cultivate vulnerability in other aspects of life, it feels much more like a give-and-take.
With this give and take, often some of the roles I take on involve me making space and listening to people who are vulnerable rather than being vulnerable in return. Sometimes that makes me more stressed and anxious. I love holding that space for people. But how do you allow vulnerability to be something that doesn’t make you anxious, use it as something positive and beautiful?
“Even if they aren’t judging me, I’m judging myself. It’s not really about the situations, though, but how I’ve learned to feel in those situations. Other people don’t create my vulnerability. I am the only one who creates it.”
How does vulnerability physically feel when it comes up?
Like I want to curl my shoulders in and hold onto my elbows and curl into myself. Because I am so introverted, my response to a lot of things is to go inwards. It can feel like a wobbliness, an unsteadiness in my legs. It can feel like a hollowness, but a lot of the time because I do tend towards thinking too much and being anxious—you know the clattering sound a hamster makes on a wheel? Or dishes clanging? It sounds like that in my head. It’s always there, usually at a buzz or a simmer, and then it can get really strong and start boiling over. It’s been a long time since I haven’t had at least some level of that. It feels like a lot of things, sometimes all at once!
