Have you ever been too vulnerable with someone too soon?
After that, it became really awkward and neither one of you really knew what to do?
I’m not just talking about sex, I’m talking about sharing personal information, vulnerabilities, or what the Bible sometimes refers to as “nakedness.”
The sexual dimension of the human experience is one of the most powerful and also one of the most personal aspects of who we are. That is why talking about sexuality with someone else can be very difficult unless there is a context of trust and maturity in the relationship…for both of you.
You need to know how much of yourself you want to open up to another person; they need to know how much of you they want to receive.
An imbalance in this relationship quickly becomes awkward, especially if neither party knows how to communicate about what is going on.
Sometimes you meet a person and it feels like you’ve known them forever. It is easy to just open up and bare your whole soul. They can hold it. They want to hold it. They want to hold you, and you want to be held by them. It is beautiful, especially when these feelings are mutual and you feel a sense of deep connection that may last an entire lifetime.
Sometimes that initial conversation becomes the starting point of a long-lasting friendship or partnership. Sometimes that’s all you both needed.
These kind of connections are a rare and beautiful gift! However, if one person enters the conversation or leaves with an expectation that is unshared, that gift can quickly turn toxic.
If the only reason someone felt safe to open up was because they expected it to lead to a lifelong conversation, they might become disappointed and angry about what happened. They may even feel tricked by the other person, or by the feeling of intimacy that existed between the two of them.
Certain skills and techniques (like mirroring, questions, eye contact, etc.) that a person can use to help someone else feel more comfortable to open up and share the deepest parts of themselves. It is possible to use these techniques to create a false sense of safety and connection, to fake an interest that does not really exist.
External circumstances can fool people who are not in touch with their deeper sense of awareness and truth. But does the instigator deserve consequences for concocting a false sense of intimacy?
Some people have no one with whom to be vulnerable and the chance to share with anyone can be a great relief…at least in the moment. If there is an underlying feeling of mistrust, however, the relief quickly turns to fear that one’s deepest secrets are now in the hands of a person who once deceived them.
Even the deceiver may be unsatisfied with the results of their behavior. They may not be aware of what their natural skills bring to life in other people – and might actually be frustrated over receiving too much personal vulnerability that they are not ready for.
This is the danger of learning techniques of communication without first cultivating a heart that truly desires connection with others. However, I believe most people deep down do want this kind of intimacy, even if they are not ready for it.
The Bible describes this fundamental aspect of our humanity with the story of how God divided a lonely human being into man and woman so that the two parts could experience the thrill of coming back together.
This mystery contains one of the deepest revelations about the connection between God and humanity. Humans are created for intimacy with the divine just as we are created for intimacy with each other.
The richest parts of the human experience unfold as we open the deepest parts of ourselves to another, without the need to hide.
And because most of us have experienced rejection by another person (or someone has told us we are rejected by God), this kind of open, naked, intimate, knowing is also one of the scariest parts of the human experience.
That is why many of us need help to open up to ourselves, to God, and to each other. Tools and techniques can help in the moment, but ultimately the first step to experience this “knowing” begins when we remember who we are.
Are you ready to go deeper?