As a kid, I had no interest in showing my cards and letting people know who I really was. I spent much of my life building walls.

It wasn’t that I had a lot to hide. I was just so scared of being unaccepted that I eliminated any opportunity for that to happen—and that meant assimilating into my surroundings, hiding the parts that didn’t seem to fit in, and not drawing attention to myself.

Shared hobbies are like currency for belonging as a kid, so I tried to find a way to have similar interests. I wasn’t athletic so I couldn’t find belonging in that community. Even though I wasn’t really musical, I hung around my musician friends and made myself useful through making album covers, websites, and music videos. I wasn’t into theatre either, but my school took pride in our theatre program so I found a way to belong by learning how to operate the technical side of things behind the scenes. 

I didn’t want to risk being an outsider. Being part of something and contributing with my skills granted me the belonging I wanted. It also meant that my work could be validated which meant I mattered. 

I wasn’t self-aware enough to realize I was holding a lot back, and not just what I liked but what I felt about anything. My context and environment told me, boys are meant to be stoic and put together. I stayed on the emotional surface, never bothering to look any deeper. 

I didn’t want to seem weak, and I didn’t want to be rejected.

In the following years after high school and college, I found myself repeating many of the same patterns that had served me well. I found ways to belong by applying my skills in a variety of circumstances. If I could learn a skill, I could bring something to the table and earn respect from my coworkers. For the most part, it worked. Vulnerability continued to be pushed into the background. From my vantage point, it served no advantageous purpose and only presented risk. 

Fast forward a few more years, and I met a girl and I knew early on that I wanted to marry her. 

While we were dating, I started to realize that I did not have the proper toolkit to be truly known by her. If I was being honest, I didn’t know myself either.

I learned quickly how difficult it could be to let another person get to know the “real me” so intimately – especially if I didn’t know who I was in the first place. Neither of us were entirely safe places. We each came with our own stories and wounds that caused us to hurt each other deeply. Uncovering parts of ourselves and making it known to the other proved to be difficult and painful – but for the first time in my life, I felt that it was worth it.

We were not just uncovering our personalities. We were slowly discovering our identities. Even though I grew up in a Christian home, this was the first time as an adult that I started the work of uncovering the man that God made me to be. 

Throughout this process, I was learning more about what it meant to be vulnerable, and aware of the pain and discomfort that it opens me up to. At the same time, I was learning that even though I was susceptible to being hurt (and sometimes I did get hurt), I came out stronger on the other side. I gained a greater awareness of who I am, and our relationship was strengthened.

Over the next few years, my wife and I became involved in men’s and women’s groups. We became part of more intentional communities and friendships that were unlike any of our previous friend groups. I was already learning how vulnerability was important and helpful in my marriage, but did I really have to do that with friends too? It turned out that my old strategies to merely be useful were not surefire ways to build strong friendships. 

The people that we had become friends with were less interested in what I could do or offer but were more keen on finding out who I was as a person. What was I truly like? How was my relationship with God? How was I growing as a disciple? A husband? A father? I realized that if I wanted to build a surface-level friendship with people, then I would need to do just that: stay on the surface and not let them get to know too many things about me. 

While the high school version of me might have been okay with that, as an adult, I realized that I did not want that anymore. I owed it to my wife and kids to surround our family with good, meaningful relationships. Because of previous habits, I struggled with finding the balance between showing what I could do vs. showing who I was. Being vulnerable with my wife meant one thing, but being vulnerable with friends felt like another. The risk of shame and rejection from a group of guys somehow felt like a higher cost. It was a risk, for sure. But it was one I was willing to take. Over the next few years, I had to learn, or unlearn, what I defined as acceptance and belonging. 

In that time I’ve started to learn some key aspects of the value of vulnerability in friendships and the fruit of that, as Nietzche says, in becoming who you are.

First, vulnerability isn’t just about being emotional. 

Vulnerability is about being honest, and sometimes that incites deep emotions in us. 

Because of my story, I’m inclined to try and appear knowledgeable and autonomous. Like I’ve got it all together. But that’s not always the case, and I am learning that it's not a weakness to admit that I'm not okay. 

Tapping into my feelings does not come naturally to me, so part of being vulnerable for me is admitting to my friends that something feels off and allowing them to speak into what may be going on. 

The more they know me, the more they’ll be able to speak into my life, so this is a long, ongoing process. 

My men’s group often has “hot seat” evenings, where one member of our group sits on the proverbial hot seat and allows the rest of the group to speak into his life. Because of the level of vulnerability and trust that has been built over the years, you know that no one will hold back. All of us are welcome to say things that feel risky to speak out loud and offer advice and encouragement when needed. And because of our shared beliefs and values, I can trust that the words spoken over my life are beneficial for me and my family. 

Second, who I surround myself with really matters. 

It’s okay to be picky about who you choose to hold your stuff with you. As kids, we were always taught to “choose friends wisely”, and that is especially true in adult friendships. 

Our friends also form us, so whoever I choose to let in, I want them to have values that align with mine.

This doesn’t mean I am only friends with people who think like me, but that I invest more time and trust in relationships with people I align with on a deep level. 

Of course, it’s hard for a lot of us guys to just come up to someone and ask to be friends. That does not always come naturally. 

I think one way to do it is to prioritize situations where you can be around people who have values that you share, or look up to. When it comes to matters of faith and core responsibilities like being a husband, a father, a son and a brother, I learned quickly that I needed people around me that I could be honest with and people who could be honest with me. 

By God’s grace, we were blessed with meeting such an amazing group of people through a Bible study more than ten years ago. Back then, I didn’t really know the guys personally, but the more I got to know them, the more I realized that I wanted to have a better friendship with them. If we weren’t attending the weekly Bible study, or staying a little longer after Mass to hang out with the community, then I probably would not have had the same opportunities to get to know the guys and eventually be invited into a men’s group.

Ten years into marriage, being in my career and co-managing a household with three young kids in school, my spare time is few and far between. I simply do not have the time and energy to say yes to all things and all people. 

Our community is deeply committed to each other. We prioritize time with each other: weekly evenings with our men’s group, monthly gatherings with a broader faith-based community, and a yearly retreat. While this may feel like a big commitment, both in time and energy, my wife and I have decided that this level of community vulnerability is the best way to help our family thrive. 

Lastly, when it comes to vulnerability, I need to actually be willing to put in the work. 

I had been in my men’s group for almost five years, wondering “When will they do the digging to find out how I’m actually doing?” I wanted them to ask me. Even though I had really enjoyed and valued being part of my men’s group, I went for years feeling like I wasn’t getting what everyone else was getting out of the group. And I was right – but, what I didn’t yet realize was that it was on me. 

One night, I felt the overwhelming burden of it all and shared this feeling with the rest of the guys. I asked why they hadn’t done the work to dig more deeply into my story. They told me that I had to do the work to find the thread to pull on. This helped me understand that vulnerability isn’t something that someone else can do for you (that seems a little more obvious now, in retrospect!). Realizing this burden of responsibility opened the door for me to begin a journey of entering into being more truly vulnerable. 

I say “journey” because obviously none of these changes happened overnight. I changed my posture towards openness with my friends. In all my years of avoiding being vulnerable, I ended up having little to no experience with introspection and knowing myself well enough to be known by others. At the end of the day, there is something that happens when I know myself and allow others to know me: I discover and live into the purpose and identity God has designed specifically for me.

How do you actually practice being vulnerable? 

In our men’s group, as we share what’s going on in our lives, if someone gets too caught up in the surface-level details of a story, we ask, “Where is your heart in this?” (In other words, what do you believe about yourself in this circumstance? What are you actually trying to say?) 

Knowing that this is often a question that comes up, I have learned to navigate and process more of life in real-time, asking myself the question when I feel tensions come up in life. It has been pivotal for me to be able to dive deep into introspection and self-understanding so that I can practice being more truly vulnerable with God, with myself, my beautiful wife Hazelle, and other important people in my life. I’d be the first to admit that this does not come naturally to me— introspection is hard work. But in the safe space of deep caring relationships, I’ve found the grace to keep showing up and trying, stumbling from time to time. 

In all this, I’ve been learning that the biggest risk associated with vulnerability isn’t that people will find out who I truly am and won’t accept me for it, it’s that they won’t know who I am and I’ll have to navigate life alone.

Growing up I avoided vulnerability because of the risk of rejection. After digging through layers I’ve learned that my fear was less about rejection, but more about not actually being known. By no means can I claim that “I’ve made it” when it comes to being vulnerable. My wife and my friends often still need to keep me in check, and I’m learning to do the same for them. These days, I more fully understand not just the value of vulnerability, but also the critical nature of being vulnerable in order to be in a deep and meaningful relationship with important people in my life.