Should You Open Yourself Up and Share With More People?
You alone have the answer – but here’s why I think it’s YES.
Secrets can be useful in many ways.
When it comes to national security, for example, certain secrets keep people from hacking into various systems and shutting down the power grid or something equally bad.
Secrets also can make room for surprises. You can’t throw a good surprise party for someone if you don’t make secret plans and keep that someone out of the loop.
But secret-keeping can become habitual. Things that don’t need to be secret become closely guarded, and you share less and less. Before you know it, you’re a mystery to most who encounter you.
This, unfortunately, can lead to a bigger issue. The more secrets you keep, the more closed you become. When you become more closed, you start to be a mystery not just to those who encounter you – but also to yourself.
One way to counter this is by sharing with more people. But should you? Thar depends on a lot of factors.
Let’s begin by defining what opening up and sharing might be worth including.
What should you share?
You have secrets nobody else needs. Hence, you shouldn’t share your bank account number, SSN, PINs, passwords, and so on.
When you approach this from a less literal notion of sharing – it’s time to talk about mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
It is still incredibly taboo to discuss mental health matters with others. There is a stigma attached to sensitivity, depression, anxiety, and other greater and lesser mental health issues. You might be loathe to share if you’re in therapy, taking an antidepressant or antianxiety medication. It’s often implied – if not stated outright – that to share with more people is to make yourself more vulnerable.
And that’s the rub. Nobody wants to be vulnerable. Why? Because being vulnerable makes you an easier target for derision, ridicule, shame, and more.
Or does it? What if opening yourself to share with more people – and the vulnerability that comes with that – is actually empowering?
Open yourself up and share with more people
When you’re closed off, you’re like a wall. Impassible, often in the way, creating division.
Ever run into a wall? Ever reach a wall and become increasingly frustrated by how it’s in your way? Likely, you have.
When you share with more people, you offer a door or a window rather than a frustrating wall. You become someone that can be connected with. And just because you open yourself up and share with more people doesn’t mean you can’t maintain some walls and privacy.
The trouble comes when you are so private that you’re disconnected. Disconnect can make you feel increasingly alone, lost, and separated.
Even the most introverted people need to make connections. It’s part of human nature. And connecting walls creates blockages between you and all else.
Choosing to be vulnerable by opening yourself up to share with more people can be scary. But is it worth it?
You are worth it
What matters most is recognizing and acknowledging that you, ultimately, are worth it.
And what does that mean? It means your mental, emotional, and spiritual health are just as worthwhile and deserving as your physical health. The holistic picture that makes you, you, is something you are worthy of that’s equally worthy of you.
When you don’t share yourself – you become increasingly disconnected. That can lead to lower self-esteem, greater uncertainty, and a sense that you simply don’t belong.
If you fight depression, anxiety, or have any other diagnosed mental health issue, this can be especially disconcerting and challenging. You might build more walls to protect yourself. But in doing that, you lock yourself up and close yourself off.
That doesn’t improve your life experience. Most likely it has the opposite effect.
When you open yourself up and share with more people, you might become more vulnerable. But guess what? That just makes you more human.
Everyone feels vulnerable. It’s not a weakness. You will face the unknown and uncertainty about both yourself and the world around you – and feel vulnerable. Welcome to the human condition.
But you are worth it. Because when you allow yourself to be vulnerable, that’s a kindness.
Share with more people kindness, compassion, and empathy
Vulnerability is no weakness. Instead, it’s a form of kindness, compassion, and empathy.
This is true both towards yourself turned inwards and towards others turned outwards.
The notion of vulnerability as weakness has been increasingly weaponized in Western society. Whole cults of people prey on faux vulnerability.
Why faux vulnerability? Because the perception of vulnerability as a weakness is a lie. The truth is that kindness, compassion, and empathy – which everyone desires – tie directly to vulnerability.
What is vulnerability, then? It’s a door or a window in the wall. It’s a way within that shows the world without how similar you are to nearly everyone.
People lash out from fear. But the truth is that being vulnerable isn’t a weakness at all. It’s a path to connectivity between you and everyone.
That can still be scary. But isn’t finding and creating more connectivity better than going it alone?
Food for thought. But that’s why the answer to the question – from the perspective shared here – is yes.
Do you think you should open yourself up and share with more people?
This is the six-hundred and eighth (608) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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