"If you were to make a sign about something that you normally would want to hide, what would it say?"
That's what people were asked in the video clip below.
It's worth stopping what you do and watching this, to see what people put on their signs. I'm sure many of them will resonate with you.
To me, vulnerability is the key to true connection.
Our egos are so busy creating a perfect self-image that we can present to the world, but connection doesn't come from people being impressed by us.
Connection happens instantly in "What - you, too?" moments. It's a result of us recognising ourselves in each other.
The only way for people to truly connect with us, is to allow them to truly see us - our true Selves -the ones we normally hide behind our perfect (artificial) self-image.
And the only way for us to do that, is to let our guard down - our self-image - and let them see the raw material, without all the polishing. Not only will we allow moments of genuine connection, we will give the other person permission to do the same - to be themselves.
When we allow others to see our vulnerabilities and imperfections - they can see, "Hey, she's human! I'm human, too! We're the same! Let's be friends!"
Carrying our self-image gets heavy over time
I'm carrying a self-image, too, of course. It has different facets with different people.
The only time I let it down is in "F . . k it"-moments. You know, when it gets so heavy that you don't care anymore about the consequences, you just wanna get rid of it and lay it down. You're ready for the worst case scenario and for the other person to think the absolute worst of you, but normally that's exactly what does not happen. What happens instead is understanding and "Hey, I had no idea!"-compassion and you just feel sooo much lighter.
We're all the same.
Deep down - if we would dig into our innermost fears - we'd all realize that we are all the same. We all just have different methods to cope or compensate for our (perceived) shortcomings.
Sadly, those copying mechanisms is all we publicly see - without true context - and we judge people by what we see them do. We rarely ask for context first in order to gain a true sense of what their story is, and most importantly their intention.
We should all let our guard down a little more often to have compassion for our similarities, instead of judging each other for our differences.