Vulnerability vs Transparency

I have been having another ponder today: what is the difference between Vulnerability and Transparency? The first word is on a lot of our lips just now following the awesome talks and writings of Brene Brown. The latter seems a humble, rather old-fashioned cousin to the more fashionable 'v' word. So, I wondered how does the dictionary define these two words? This is what I found:

Vulnerable - capable of or susceptible to being wounded, as by a weapon: a vulnerable part of the body. Open to attack, criticism, temptation. 

Transparent - having the property of transmitting rays of light through its substance so that bodies beyond or behind can be distinctly seen. Easily seen through, recognised, or detected. Open, frank, candid.  

Quite different, aren't they? One, vulnerable, seems to describe being wide-open-to-be-seen-without-any-protection, and the other, transparent, seems to describe being seen-but-protected. The latter, when it comes to transparency in a human being, seems to me to be about allowing ourself to be seen in a protected way, which, by definition, isn't vulnerability. And being vulnerable means allowing ourselves to be seen in a totally open, nothing-between-viewer-and-person way, which by definition isn't transparent; there's nothing to be 'seen through'. 

My ponderings rambled on into, 'can one decide which to be?' Can I choose to live, or write something, from my vulnerable self or my transparent self at will? Or am I and my writing whichever they are simply because I am either vulnerable or transparent? Meaning that each piece I write comes over in vulnerability or transparency depending on how I am with the subject matter at that time.

I came up with the likelihood that if I am writing about something I understand, have worked on, can describe in fine detail on a psychological level, but haven't truly healed deeply within me, I am likely being transparent. If I write about something I have worked right through, understood, but also healed and released from the cells of my body, I am likely being vulnerable. Vulnerability comes from the fact that I have nothing to hide about it any more, nothing to shield, to protect and the subject matter has simply become part of my story. I can talk or write about it without any old emotional triggers being fired within me, and without any need for the reader to 'get it', or believe me, or be moved by me. If I am being transparent about it, I can write it, tell it, have intellectually understood it, but I am likely to use it to tell others what to do in their (only ever vaguely similar) situation, but still have to quash the rumblings of emotion still firing off in my body. I can even be transparent about these emotions and tell people what they are - in speech or writing - but I am still only being transparent, not vulnerable. I sense that, for me, the bookshop tables of misty-imaged 'misery books' of the last ten years were left there by me as they felt way too indigestible; they were written from transparency, not vulnerability. 

When I read a piece about a difficult time in someone's life, different sensations arise within me; sometimes, when the author is being transparent, I feel it unpleasantly in my own body (yet without being offered space to heal it in me), sometimes I feel the weight of an 'I should suffer with you' about it, and sometimes, when the author is being vulnerable, I gain a valuably simple sense of unconditional companionship with my own 'stuff'. I can see the difference between the author being transparent or vulnerable; the former has an expectation of me, the latter doesn't. Transparency is heavy, and even embarrassing. Vulnerability is, perhaps unexpectedly, light and helpful. 

Being truly vulnerable is the result of not having to put up any shields - see-through or not - and being able to touch and be touched. Being transparent is about letting another see me, but not touching them or having them touch me, because of the deceptively invisible barrier of protection. These two are often confused, from both sides, and getting stuck at the transparency stage a common situation.

My answer to my pondering then? That whilst becoming transparent is a great step forward on the road home to self, there's actually more to do on the journey onwards as I continue to move from transparency to vulnerability. 

I've not read Brene's book for a while - it's time for another read to see what she says about this!