30 Days Journal - Day 23

I am a terrible journal-er. As an exercise to become better, I decided to do a 30 day journal challenge for myself. Just like during my quarantine, I am using Isolation Journals for daily journal prompt.

Prompt: Write about a time when you interacted with someone in a moment when both of you were vulnerable. How did you react to your own vulnerability and that of the other? What went acknowledged and what remained silent? Would you have handled the situation differently in retrospect? How did it change you?

I think most of the time really intimate conversation happens through spontaneous moments for me. Usually neither one of us are planning to have a vulnerable moment but it happens. Some of my most memorable vulnerable moments are just strictly just gets rolled up in a conversation and mostly in relatively public places. Sometimes it is even difficult to face the person, so our postures are facing toward the front while still making eye contacts when needed. I think the point of the posture matters because it gives a way to escape when you get too uncomfortable.

I don’t really know how I react to my own vulnerability but I definitely noticed it is much easier as more often I dig deep and share. The reaction I receive from others are never what I expected but never a surprise. The acknowledgement is never forced, and having moments of silence make the experience candid and authentic. Sometimes things left unsaid is beautiful the way it is because it is not forced to filled that moment. It may require some reflection or even to process what was shared. I treasure those silences and let is go. I wish some of the vulnerable moments did not have a time limit, for example we had to be somewhere else - it sometimes cut short the moment and we don’t know if we can ever revisit those moments again.

I think the most difficult part for me in those moments are to refrain from having a judgement. I have trained myself over the years to refrain from having those thoughts or communicate it in a way that can be taken poorly. Sometimes my curiousity also lead down a path that may be temporarily uncomfortable but I wouldn’t trade that aspect because sometimes those uncomfortable moments are what is needed to truly dig into the vulnerable parts of ourselves.