transparency

A common response I get after a public speaking engagement is, “I so appreciate your vulnerability when you speak.”

I don’t want to contradict them at the moment, so I don’t, but the truth is, I’m generally not vulnerable when I speak.

I’m transparent.

There’s a big difference.

For a long time, I thought I was being vulnerable by sharing personal stories, particularly stories of things I’ve struggled with, in front of others.

But I generally share in the past tense. Like, “here’s something I used to struggle with” or “let me tell you about a time I failed and how God used it.”

That’s not vulnerability. It’s transparency.

Vulnerability vs Transparency

Here’s the difference:

As my friend Iris puts it well, transparency is putting your junk in a window on display for others to see. Yes, it might be awkward, but you get to choose what they see and what they don’t.

You can choose that which has healed over, or is healing over. You can choose that which no longer evokes shame (if it ever did). What others see is completely within your control.

Vulnerability is inviting people into the back room to see what’s still tender. Back there lie the things that do trigger shame. The wounds that are still open. That which you may fear bringing into the light. Sometimes things you don’t even realize are there.

Being transparent is good-we need people to see how we are growing, how we have grown. It invites them to do the same. When God brings us through something difficult and we share it with others, it ministers to them.

Not everyone has earned the right to come into the back room to see what is deepest in us. We aren’t meant to show all that to the world. So no, I’m not particularly vulnerable when I speak, by intention. Vulnerability is meant for safe spaces and safe people.

Choosing Vulnerability and Transparency

But that doesn’t mean we get a pass on sharing vulnerably with others. We’re all called to go beyond transparency with some people, or at least someone. We need God’s wisdom and guidance (and a good bit of courage) to know who our safe people are. And when we figure out who they are, we need to bravely invite them into those back room places.

Chances are, some of the stories that we are transparent about now were once things that felt very vulnerable. Because we shared them with safe people first, they can be brought to a place where we share them with others. Healing has happened. The more we choose vulnerability, the more we are able to be transparent about the wounds that have healed.

There’s a place for transparency. And there’s a place for vulnerability. Not everyone has earned the right to see all of us, but everyone needs to see some of it.

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The Illusion of Having It All Together