On this beautiful sunny Friday, I’d like to take a minute to talk about vulnerability.  It is perhaps the bravest act one can take, to be vulnerable with someone else, is it not?  To open up, to show someone something real and deep and true, and risk rejection or ridicule when all you desire is to be seen.  Seen and loved.

I watched Brené Brown’s Netflix special The Call to Courage the other night, and I am still thinking about it days later.  Her research on shame, vulnerability, and courage is amazing, but her humor and compassion make it that much more poignant and powerful a presentation.  Brown is witty and insightful, bringing her research together with anecdotes from her own life to show us that we are in it together, we need each other, and we can only forge those connections by being brave.  Highly recommend.

With that in mind, I found Melanie Hamlett’s excellent article to be especially timely.  Hamlett discusses toxic masculinity and the ways it forces women to take on a hugely unequal amount of emotional labor.  This is certainly not news, per se, but in her take, she explores a new wave of men’s groups that are encouraging vulnerability, communication, and mutual support.  Our #MeToo era of “wokeness” seems to have more men thinking hard about their own emotional needs.  Drinking, trying to “get laid,” ogling women, and playing contact sports have traditionally been the only socially-sanctioned ways for men to connect with each other, all of which reinforce painfully toxic tropes about “being a man.”  Furthermore, the idea that men should only be emotionally open with women, and that they should find “their one and only” to connect with, left many female partners shouldering far more emotional work than they could handle.  These small, intimate new men’s groups offer the opportunity for healthy emotional connections, and have the side benefit of easing some of the emotional labor burden off of the women they love.  Win-win.

Perhaps we’ve been onto something all along with our ladies’ nights and brunches with the girls — and thankfully, many men are starting to catch on.  Emotional support networks are necessary for all of us, and outlets for vulnerability — as brave as one must be to go there — can only make us stronger.

Art by Explicit Design via society6.