Episode #25: Vulnerability: The Road to Courage, Self-Compassion and Self-Worth
Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT | Anxiety & OCD Specialist
4.9 • 882 Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2017
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vulnerability: The Road to Courage, Self-Compassion and Self-Worth
In today's podcast, I wanted to dissect the concept of Vulnerability.
Brene Brown, reknowned researcher on Vulnerability defines Vulnerability as
"Uncertainty, Risk and Emotional Exposure"
I find this somewhat ironic, as Uncertainty, Risk and Emotional Exposure are the worst nightmare of someone who experiences anxiety, OCD, an eating disorder (such as Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa), trauma, grief or depression.
I think many humans struggle with these concepts, but I feel that it is significantly difficult for those who struggle with these mental health disorders. In many cases, there is a complete rejection of vulnerability.
I believe we think that if we avoid vulnerability, we
can rid ourselves of shame, embarrassment, being judged, feeling sad or hurt.
However, all we end up doing is numbing.
When we have anxiety, we think that if we avoid vulnerability, we could rid ourselves of possible bad or catastrophic outcomes.
However, all we end up doing is becoming compulsive.
In this podcast, I detail the workings of those who are successful at being vulnerable and take a look at the outcomes that result.
We will outlines ways that you can practice vulnerability in large or small steps.
We look at the repurcussions of staying safe and avoiding vulernability and we detail the research's findings about self-worth and conectivity.
I hope you enjoy it! This is one of my favorite subjects.
Forward we go!
Kimberley
Photo by Nathan Anderson on UnsplashTranscript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, my name is Kimberly Quinlan and this is your anxiety toolkit podcast. Welcome back. |
| 0:23.4 | Today, I wanted to speak with you about vulnerability. I was recently listening to a podcast |
| 0:31.1 | and the podcast was talking about this idea around vulnerability, particularly related to a new book called The Mask of |
| 0:40.5 | of Masculinity and talking a lot about how specifically the men, but I think he was really |
| 0:48.0 | speaking to all of us about how we need to work at being more vulnerable and that when we can do that, we don't have to wear |
| 0:56.5 | these masks to cover up and to protect us. And this idea is something that I work a lot with, |
| 1:03.7 | and it made me realize it's something that I really wanted to speak with you guys about. |
| 1:08.7 | So I wanted to look at vulnerability and dissect it a little bit here. |
| 1:13.5 | And I'm sure all of you know, like the queen of vulnerability is Brunay Brown and a lot of today's |
| 1:20.1 | podcast is coming from a lot of her research about vulnerability. And the way she defines vulnerability, I thought was very interesting when we look at it |
| 1:31.5 | through the lens of anxiety. So she defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. |
| 1:41.9 | And for those of us who have anxiety, these three topics are probably our biggest, |
| 1:49.6 | worst nightmare. I'm laughing, but it's really even not funny. It's actually, it's scary even just |
| 1:57.5 | to think about these ideas and words of like uncertainty, right? And I think |
| 2:03.6 | when we have anxiety, we do this complete rejection of uncertainty. We do a complete rejection |
| 2:11.1 | of taking risks, right? We may take risks in some areas, but in the area where we have anxiety, we feel like there is no wiggle |
| 2:20.8 | room to take risks. And I think as the author was talking about related to the masks of masculinity, |
| 2:30.0 | we all walk around, well, I think we all walk around to some degree masking our true emotions |
| 2:39.1 | or who we really are. Some are better than others, and I think we're all sort of on the journey |
| 2:46.3 | together. But when we really look at that, we can really see how much anxiety can pull us away from the |
| 2:54.2 | practice of vulnerability now when we avoid vulnerability we think that we are ridding ourselves of |
| 3:05.5 | the possibility for shame the possibility for being embarrassed, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT | Anxiety & OCD Specialist, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT | Anxiety & OCD Specialist and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.