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Improve Your Relationships: Dare to be Vulnerable

Lack of vulnerability serves as a barrier to connection. Here’s why you should remove the mask.

Jonathan Printers Jr., LSW
5 min readNov 3, 2021

True intimacy is not achieved by showing strengths, but by sharing our most sensitive and tender part, without fear of appearing weak.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Jorge was born into a family where crying was almost forbidden. Strength was valued above all else and being vulnerable was seen as a gesture of weakness that was severely punished. He had grown up believing that no matter what happened, you always had to be tough, brave, and strong to be worthy of the admiration, respect, and love of others.

However, this belief tormented him because he did not always feel that way, so he tried to stay very distant from the people around him. When he connected with his vulnerability, all he wanted was for no one to see him. Then he would withdraw and feel small, unprotected, and alone.

In this way, for years he struggled internally to hide his vulnerability, clinging to the familiar belief that he had inadvertently incorporated. During the therapeutic process, he was aware that this belief was not his own, but a family inheritance that he did not want, and, finally, he was…

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Jonathan Printers Jr., LSW
Jonathan Printers Jr., LSW

Written by Jonathan Printers Jr., LSW

Finn’s dad | Psychotherapist | Army Officer (IG @modern.therapist) | Workplace Health and Attachment behaviors.

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