The most common misconception about vulnerability is seeing it as a weakness. However, this type of thinking results from a general misinterpretation of the word vulnerable.

According to the definition, vulnerable means being susceptible to an attack or harm, which could be achieved by using a security hole from the person’s characteristics. So for someone with lower emotional intelligence, vulnerability would mean precisely the same as weakness. 

But this is not an accurate way of interpreting and connecting the meanings of those couple of terms. They have a deeper meaning, and we are about to discuss them in a bit more detail below. 

Can Vulnerability Be a Weakness?

From a psychological and emotional point of view, vulnerability is anything but a weakness. Just on the contrary – it is often considered a rarely found strength. 

Knowing how to be vulnerable is a very important factor on the path to becoming your best you. Being vulnerable simply means having the courage to:

• Be your most authentic self and not hide behind facades to impress others;
• Hold onto who you are without allowing shame or embarrassment to stop you from being real;
• Show your flaws without feeling like a failure and encourage others to show their letdowns without judging them. 

Or else said – vulnerability is the mindful determination to reveal yourself without fear and be self-confident enough to let others see you for who you are. 

How is Vulnerability Different Than Weakness?

Sometimes, it is hard to accept that someone wants to be good to us or express honest emotion with no second thoughts. So, normally, we keep our defenses too high, making it hard for us to form true friendships and alliances. 

This is where a vulnerability becomes a necessity for further growth. Being vulnerable is allowing someone else to know and love you purely. It requires you to be self-aware and conscious to improve your emotional intelligence. 

The most common vulnerability example seems to be sharing personal information that you normally would not share with someone. Vulnerability does not mean over-sharing – it’s a deliberate decision about who you are sharing with. 

How Can I be Vulnerable and Strong?

To be vulnerable means to let your guards down and be seen for who we truly are. There are a few steps you can go through in order to turn your vulnerability into your superpower:

Change Your Mindset

You are no longer playing the victim, and you need to stop using vulnerability as an excuse to feel sorry for yourself. That means deeply acknowledging a painful situation and your personal role in bringing it about without allowing things to define your identity.

Tear Down Those Walls

Reach out to others and share your story. When you stop playing the victim, you stop looking to others for consolation, and as a result, people will feel safer sharing their ideas because they won’t feel responsible for fixing you. So stop expecting others to swoop in and save you, and instead, use them as a source of inspiration. 

You’ll find that more people can relate to you than you think. And once you realize that you’re not the only one carrying a burden, you’ll feel its weight lift from your shoulders. Then, a sudden power that allows you to move forward will kick in. That’s the moment your vulnerability turns into a superpower.

Commit to the New Mindset

A good mindfulness routine is a perfect countermeasure. When you feel that victim mentality creeping up again, try doing some stream-of-consciousness journaling, gratitude journaling, meditation, and track your sleep to ensure you get those eight hours. These strategies lead to a heightened awareness of the good things in life that, when recognized daily, can stop you from falling victim to the bad kind of vulnerability.

Knowing how to be vulnerable requires you to analyze yourself, identify your existing capacities and focus on your desired ones. This process is called a capacity assessment. It will help you understand your personal needs and where you need to expand your capacity. Vulnerability and capacity assessment play an essential role in personal development.

Why is Vulnerability so Hard?

As we mentioned earlier, you need to take your guards down to allow yourself to be vulnerable. But it is not comfortable letting your guard down and allowing someone else to see your not-so-good side. That makes it hard. And that’s why vulnerability takes courage. 

Try to observe your conversations with your friends and family, for example. You may notice that most of them are so shallow, basic topics. They don’t go deeper. If you want to build deep connections with people around you, you need to have the courage to be vulnerable.

It is hard and embarrassing to tell people what you’re bad at. You will probably not feel comfortable in these emotions. But we all know that growth does not come from a comfort zone. We are constantly amazed by an example of failure we’ve read about. And still, we don’t want to experience the same things. We are afraid to share our own mistakes, often because of our pride and ego.

But if you open up about your mistakes, you will connect with other people on a deeper level. Your failures are not a big deal. What matters here is what you have learned and how you’ve struggled. This will shape your personality, emotional well-being, and your ability to feel a genuine connection with the people surrounding you. You will enter a new world where you don’t feel shame for what you’ve been through in life. 

Instead, life will become a safe place to exchange experiences. And that’s something worth giving a shot!

We all overthink situations in our day-to-day life. But if you overthink too much for too long, this might be a sign that you are an extreme overthinker.

If your thoughts are on repeat if you are worrying and ruminating, or even if you overthink about overthinking, then you’ll have plenty of hands-on advice in the paragraphs below.

So, how to stop overthinking and improve your overall well-being?

How to Get Rid of Negative Thoughts?

Let’s say it how it is – people are rarely overthinking about their happiest moments, and overthinking is seldom associated with calmness and peace. So – how are you supposed to stop the automatic negative thoughts from creeping in?

First of all – try to rephrase.

The moment you catch yourself thinking about something negative, try to rephrase it in your head. For example, when overthinking, your negative thoughts might sound something like, “I’m alone, I feel lonely.” Try to restate this and replace it with “I will make time for myself to enjoy my company and practice self-love.” This technique will help you to see things from a different perspective. 

Also, allow yourself to ask for help. It is not embarrassing to see a therapist. We often make it through school and into our careers without ever being taught how to build and maintain healthy relationships with ourselves and others. And this is what a counselor or therapist can do for you.

What Triggers Overthinking?

You are overthinking when you want to protect yourself from your fears and past traumas – even if you don’t do it consciously. But it is very important to deep dive and understand what stands underneath your overthinking patterns.

Think about what wounds and fears you are trying to protect yourself from. It could be a fear of abandonment, rejection, embarrassment, fear of not feeling good enough, and so on.

Normally, you start overthinking, hoping it will safeguard you from fears and negativity. But in reality, you don’t feel protected in any way. Instead, it leads to quite the opposite – when you overthink, you are actually sabotaging yourself and your thoughts; you are not protecting yourself.

What is Overthinking a Symptom Of?

People who suffer from depression, anxiety, ADHD, and eating disorders share a common overthinking symptom. It is a narrative in your head you can’t stop playing over and over again.

When you are overthinking, your mental health and well-being begin to decrease. It lowers your confidence and increases your sense of indecisiveness.

As a part of your self-awareness journey, you need to be aware and accept that overthinking is not serving you in any way. It is not helping or protecting you. Instead, it consumes you by preventing you from growing, having self-confidence, and building healthy relationships.

Is Overthinking a Mental Disorder?

Overthinking is not by itself classified as a mental disorder. But it is a symptom of a mental illness like depression and anxiety. For example, people who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder tend to fall into overthinking habits more often than not. It leads to restlessness, lack of concatenation, and irregular sleep. 

Though it might be easier said than done, a crucial first step for mentally healthy overthinkers would be to learn to let go. Don’t try to control uncontrollable things – instead, try to focus on things you can control, which is your current, present reality. If you train yourself to manage your perspective, beliefs, thoughts, and actions, overthinking can start slowly easing, and your quality of life will change drastically. 

How to Stop Overthinking in a Relationship?

It takes time to build mindfulness habits. But it is absolutely worth it if you wish to have a joyful, peaceful, and deeply connected relationship with your partner.

Your mind is an amazing network of unlimited energy and pathways, and they can lead you straight into relationship hell if you don’t know how to rein them in.

So, how to proceed?

Complete the story in your head and be okay with the outcome

Your mind wants to see the end of every story you play in your head. And if you don’t finish the narratives, your mind will bring them up over and over again. At the end of the day, this will become a rather negative and draining background in your head. 

Sometimes, the story in your head can be one of self-hate, where your mind tells you that you are not good enough for your partner. When you take a narrative to completion, your mind will know what happens at the end and how worse things could be. Your mind will know what fear it might be dealing with, and – paradoxically or not – you might feel way better where you are now. 

The stories in your head are all fiction

You need to be self-aware, and you need to come to a realization that the stories in your head are just thoughts. They are not real. They are all fiction. Your mind is creating them. That is its job. 

So – it would be best if you could stop identifying reality with your thoughts and stop assigning so much significance to your imagination.

Talk to your partner about your concerns

Be assertive in your communication so that you can work things out together as a team. This way, you will be building up respect, trust, and openness in your relationship.

The more honest you are – the better, even if it means you’ll show up as vulnerable. 

Ways to Stop Overthinking 

As we already clarified above, people often overthink to protect themselves from their own fears and suspicions. Allow yourself to feel these emotions, and don’t rush to oppose them right away. As long as you resist, they will persist. 

One way of accepting your fears and wounds is looking at the situation from a different angle. Force yourself to change the perspective of the negative thought – instead of feeling guilt or shame, ask yourself if you are facing fear from your past or the current reality. Often, these thoughts and stories are past traumas that you are projecting onto your present life. If you recognize this pattern, do your best to control and overcome it.

Long story short – when overthinking, we live either in the past or in the future. We miss out on our current reality and cannot be fully content and present. So remind yourself that you can’t change your past, and you can’t control your future. Try to be grounded and present as much as possible, and always bring yourself to the current moment when you start to overthink. 

Reading, writing, and meditation are also very helpful in building mindfulness. Eating healthily and exercising are crucial for overcoming this bad habit, and some daily exercises in Relaxify App like positive affirmations will also bring you to create more beneficial inner dialogues. Because change comes gradually, and the results are worth it!