Research shows that in our communications, vulnerability is the quality we look for in other people but spend a lot of energy in hiding in ourselves. Why is this? Vulnerability helps us to connect, to access another person, to make authentic relationships. However, for us as individuals it opens us up to shame and the fear of not meeting other people’s expectations. We worry that if people find us disappointing, or less than perfect, then they will not like us and will turn away from us, leaving us bereft.
So, we armour up and work hard to hide away the parts of ourselves that we are not sure about, or we feel don’t work so well. We want to appear successful, interesting, and in control, rather than weak, or somehow insufficient. We go for projecting some kind of perfect version of ourselves which will ensure that we are loved and wanted. Of course, long-term it’s impossible to keep this act together. Inevitably a moment comes when something gets to us so strongly that we can’t pretend any longer. We appear as we are—flawed, brave, struggling and absolutely human. This is the moment when we can experience vulnerability as a super-power. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we are not pretending, we are not hiding—we are simply present with whatever is going on inside us.
This two-hour workshop will examine how vulnerability works and the benefits it brings to our wellbeing. We’ll look at why we fear it and the shields that we use to try and avoid it, along with some alternatives we can try out. The workshop consists of talks, video extracts, exercises, sharing and discussion. Participants will receive a PDF workbook with all the main quotes, charts and exercises.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- To understand more about the importance of developing vulnerability
- To recognise how and why we block it
- To learn methods to help us develop vulnerability.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- This workshop is for counsellors and therapists working with people who find vulnerability threatening and who wish to learn to work with it
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- This workshops aims to provide useful resources for developing vulnerability which can be shared with clients and also provide an opportunity for colleagues to work on their own issues around it.
Course Content
Presenter
Maureen is the founding director of Awareness in Action, an organization dedicated supporting people to make sustainable wellbeing part of their lives—through developing clarity, connection and openness.
Drawing on more than thirty years of experience as a professional educator, senior manager in a non-profit organization, an entrepreneur and as an experienced practitioner of Buddhist meditation, she leads Awareness in Action workshops and training programs in the UK and Europe.
Her new book, The Stress Workbook is a groundbreaking effort that brings together the best of modern science and the wisdom of the world’s ancient contemplative traditions into a practical manual for thriving in today’s fast-paced world. Although born in London, UK love took Maureen to Amsterdam, The Netherlands where she lives with her husband.
