That Vulnerability Hangover After You Let Yourself Be Seen
Here's why your body pulls back right after you finally open up.
Have you ever shared something from your soul…and then later felt embarrassed?
Like, “Why did I say that?”
“Why did I share that?”
“What are they thinking about me now?”
Let’s talk about what’s really happening there.
The Real Vulnerability of Soul Work
The women who resonate with my work often feel called to lead from their divine feminine energy.
They are Priestesses here to share their souls mission on YouTube, through a book, podcast etc...
Now, if you have a YouTube channel sharing finance tips from Dave Ramsey’s books, that’s one thing.
But when you’re sharing womb healing…
When you’re sharing something that touches your own story of pain and trauma…
When your work is connected to your heart…
That brings in a level of vulnerability that you may not have expected.
That’s like wearing your heart on your sleeve.
So when you put that out into the world, you’re letting people see your heart.
And for many of us, being vulnerable has never felt safe.
Why Embarrassment Shows Up
It’s like when you accidentally tell a personal story to a coworker, and on the way home you think…
“Why did I say that?
She’s probably judging me.
She’s probably thinks I’m a total weirdo.”
That negative self-talk happens because you can’t stay present to the fact that you were vulnerable.
So embarrassment comes in.
Embarrassment is a shield.
It protects you from actually feeling the raw vulnerability underneath.
Because vulnerability feels funky.
It feels uncomfortable.
It feels exposing.
And most of us were taught to hide that.
We were made fun of.
Disagreed with.
Dismissed.
So we learned to hide our self-expression behind a wall of protection.
And when you let that wall down to share your soul’s work, embarrassment rushes in to put the wall back up.
What’s Actually Needed
The work isn’t to dull down your self-expression or eliminate vulnerability completely.
The work is to build the capacity to stay with it.
To sit in your body.
To feel the funkiness.
Feel your heart sink into your stomach.
Feel the knot in your throat grow to the size of a golf ball.
Then breathe and stay with yourself through it all.
Self-intimacy is the ability to stay with yourself in your body when vulnerability feels unsafe.
Embarrassment will knock on the door.
And instead of letting it rush in to put a wall around your self-expression, you learn to say, “Nope. I’m staying.”
What Happens When You Stay
The more you let yourself be vulnerable,
the more you let your yourself express what’s on your heart,
the more you’ll start hearing,
“That resonated.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“I needed that.”
And even without engagement, you start to feel proud of yourself.
Because showing up vulnerably, is hard.
And when you stay with yourself through that discomfort, it gets easier.
The vulnerability hangovers only last seconds.
The become less overwhelming.
Less funky.
You still feel it.
But it doesn’t own you.
And that groundedness?
It grows when you practice staying connected to yourself while you express who you are and share your gifts.
And that shift changes everything.
We’ll continue this tomorrow.
Much love,
Essence
