Why Being Vulnerable Is Pretty Empowering



Followers of my personal Instagram page and friends on Facebook would have seen that I received a ukulele at Christmas and have been having a lot of fun learning the intro to Despacito (because I figure it'll be useful for camp fires) and lamenting the death of Dolores with a questionably in tune rendition of Zombies. Life is better with a pink ukulele in it.




To the unobservant eye, it doesn't seem like a particularly weird thing for me to do posting these videos on social media. I share a lot of my life on Instagram and Facebook but it's either when I think I look good (god knows what my boss - who follows me on Instagram -makes of all my selfies) or I'm doing something cool, that's literally it - maybe one of my friend's pets at a push. Social media is strictly for showing off. Why would I want to share something that makes me look anything less than awesome?


However, posting videos of me singing was an experiment on the back of my last post (which - by the way - I was overjoyed that people contacted me privately about it saying how much they felt the same way and felt comforted that even I for all my perceived over-confidence would befall this deadly virus of the mind) and how I was trying to regain my confidence by overcoming fear.

I'm pretty sure most people have been in the scenario where you're talking to someone you sort of know and you're talking about a song you like and they ask you to sing a bit of it. If you don't have much confidence in yourself, singing in front of someone is literally the worst request someone could ask you. They might as well ask you to give Boris Johnson a lap dance...in fact that might be more preferable. So you awkwardly try to dodge answering the question or do an Mike Skinner style talk / sing (mainly talking) rendition. Depending on my head space, I'd rather learn to lap dance.

For some reason, singing is one of those things where people can feel super awkward about. Yes, not everyone sounds like Sam Smith but most people also don't sound like those horrifying entrants on X Factor who have the most cruel friends and family to allow them to enter the stage. We will mainly have average voices which is perfectly adept for singing along at nights out, wedding circles while you can-can kick and karaoke.

Is this the part where I then talk about becoming a Coyote?

Kinda. Not the dancing on a bar whipping my hair back and forth but singing in front of a boy.

I was seeing someone recently who I felt super comfortable spending time with; there was no awkwardness about us. So we had singalongs to the car radio and also at the Temple Bar (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, Google, go, then thank me later) but it was a double act. I think people would feel more vulnerable singing in front of someone than getting naked because you're feeling exposed to judgement or potential ridicule. However, you show your vulnerable side when you're ready to let your guard down to someone else, to see if they will "accept" you. I was comfortable with this guy so I did one of the most personal things I (thought I) could do and sent him an audio of me singing whilst playing the ukulele.

My brain: Oh my god. Should I even send it to him. He will have this on his phone FOREVER and I can't take it back. It's late so I sound really tired - it's not even good. I could just sending the uke part - the fact it's a ukulele already wins brownie points.

I have had no desire to do anything like that before. Obviously it's circumstantial - it wasn't me sending a creepy serenade for the sake of it, we were joshing about starting a 2 man guitar / uke band with grand ambitions to perform at the Temple Bar (in case you hadn't noticed I LOVE THAT PLACE). He has also sent me loads of snaps of him singing without an utter care in the world (until I give him shit for driving and messaging me).

Therefore he didn't know it was a big deal to me because I didn't make it a big deal to him but it was a big deal to me. Just to reiterate, it was a BIG DEAL.

Him. Loving it...and acknowledging that I'm superwoman

But I sent it and he loved it and the world still turns. All those negative, limiting thoughts I had were squished into a ball and I felt like I survived a gauntlet in my mind.

This was pre the confidence meltdown that got me all shook and in the last few weeks when I'm coming out of the other end of this dark phase (nearly guns blazing but not quite), I thought I'd try and tap into that same feeling of "some things are not as bad as you make out in your mind".

So I posted the videos of me singing and people are either commenting on liking the song or wanting to start a lil uke playing group. No one said your singing is shit because people aren't shits. And even if people do think I'm not a great singer, I have learnt that it doesn't matter. It's NO BIG DEAL.

If I was totally honest with myself, there are other ways than singing that I could expose my vulnerability more. Make-up free selfies (unless filtered the fuck out of) doesn't make it into my feed. I have a couple of other hang-ups which if I mentioned to other people would literally think I was crazy but I suppose that's the funny thing about the mind and it's capability to cripple you. However I'm feeling very reassured that when you put something to the test and you come out the other side fine and laughing at your initial fear that maybe one day I'll bore you all with make-up free selfies.

When have you put yourself on the edge of your comfort zone? 

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