What does it step-by-step take to be vulnerable?

Ahhh...risk. The thing that skydivers and firefighters are prone to. But not you.

You just want to do your life and get what you need and spend time the way that suits you best.

Problem! Through the ups and downs of life, it is the unexpected gift of vulnerability that supports you. If you don't have that vulnerability, what will you not have access to - or will have reduced accessibility to is:

? Support

? Deep friendships

? Feeling and being truly understood

? Living authentically and with meaning

Why?

Because if you can't feel your vulnerability and walk through it - and in the appropriate ways and at appropriate times for you - you won't ask for the support you need, and you won't have friendships that hold you up when you are falling down. And so forth.

So, what do we do?

Look, vulnerability is a practice. It is - as I like to say - not an off and on switch. It is a matter of judgment as to when and with whom you practice it. But the very first person to practice it with...is you.

Being honest with ourselves about how we feel, how we wish we were feeling, who or where we are in our lives - these are big moves if you have never made them before.

One thing that will help a lot is to be vulnerable about your positives.

Many find that a difficult thing too, but it is important to start to exercise the self-supportive muscle. That is where vulnerability comes from: not from making oneself unsafe.

Our culture asks us to be harsh - we have to let that go

The American social messages tend to revolve around a kind of cowboy hardiness and solitude. Vulnerability is at the opposite end of that spectrum.

Once upon a time I was in major financial trouble. My life had fallen down and gone boom. Without any other solutions at hand, I jettisoned my pride and took to Facebook. I asked all of my friends to help me get from California back to Ohio! I shared how I had gotten to where I was, and the steps I had been taking to get myself going again - and how those steps had failed.

This was vulnerability on steroids.

But it also wasn't vulnerability out of the blue. I had been an actor for 20 years and acting is also vulnerability on steroids! (It's not pretending to feel - it's real feeling in imaginary circumstances). So I had a leg up on that one. Still, it was an act of someone without any answers left.

And I received so much help it was breath-taking. A place to live rent-free when I got home. Help getting home. Help getting my pet home. It was all simply humbling and heart opening.

But if I hadn't had that willingness to be vulnerable...I would have been without all of that support. Not a good scenario.

So, practice being vulnerable with yourself. Use writing, or videotaping yourself talking honestly to yourself, or creating artistically any kind of Wisdom Board or simple piece of artwork to tell yourself that you are listening.

Your self will thank you. And your understanding of those around you will deepen because you will see in others what you have uncovered in yourself.

Win-win.

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Communication is an art-form. Let me know if you want to make communication and connection happen authentically in board meetings, in your daily work, with your teams, or from the stage. Write to Lori at [email protected].