Counselling and psychotherapy can be life changing in ways that are often hard to put into words. You might know that something has shifted, that you feel lighter, clearer, or more yourself, but struggle to explain exactly what has changed.

This blog focuses on one of the most powerful of those shifts. The ability to sit with your own vulnerability. It’s a long one, so grab a cuppa and get comfy!

An introduction to vulnerability

A robin in the snow shows us what vulnerability can look like: tiny, seemingly fragile, yet calm, present, and quietly resilient; the very quality counselling helps you build.

It is a quiet change, but a profound one. And it has a ripple effect through every part of your life, particularly your relationships.

Vulnerability is one of those words that is used often, but rarely unpacked. You may come to counselling believing vulnerability means emotional exposure, breaking down, or putting yourself at risk of being judged or hurt. In reality, the kind of vulnerability that tends to emerge through therapy is something steadier, more grounded, and deeply life changing.

It is the capacity to notice and take responsibility for your own internal world. To feel what you feel, without judging yourself, without exporting it on to others, and without contorting yourself to meet expectations that were never truly yours.

For many people, learning to be vulnerable in this way becomes one of the most significant and enduring outcomes of therapy, because it changes how you relate to yourself and, in turn, how you relate to everyone else in your life.

How you learned not to feel

Most of us did not grow up in environments that welcomed the full range of human emotion. You may have learned, often very early, that certain feelings were inconvenient, unsafe, or unacceptable.

Perhaps anger led to rejection. Sadness felt like a burden. Neediness was met with withdrawal or criticism. Maybe being too much or not enough came with real relational consequences.

So you adapted.

You learned rules, usually outside of awareness. “I will be okay if I do not feel this.” “I will be okay if I do not say that.” “I will be okay if I become who someone else needs me to be.”

These strategies were not random. They were about survival.

As human beings, we are wired for attachment. Especially as children, our emotional and physical survival depends on connection to others. Being accepted, attuned to, and emotionally held does not just feel nice, it feels necessary.

At that age, losing connection does not register as disappointing. It registers as dangerous.

This is why early conditioning is so powerful. Your nervous system learned, long before you had words or reasoning, what kept you close to others and what risked distance or rejection. Those lessons were felt in the body, not thought through logically.

And because emotions are processed faster than rational thought, those early emotional learnings can override logic even in adulthood. You might know intellectually that you are safe, competent, or loved, yet still react as though something vital is at stake.

These adaptations often helped you once. Albeit usually unconsciously, they helped you survive emotionally, relationally, or psychologically. But what helped you once can quietly limit you later in life.

In adulthood, these old rules can show up as anxiety, burnout, low self worth, difficulty asking for help, people pleasing, conflict avoidance, or intense reactions in close relationships. You may find yourself feeling triggered by partners, colleagues, friends, or family in ways that feel confusing or disproportionate.

Vulnerability is not spilling your feelings everywhere

A common misunderstanding is that vulnerability means letting emotions run unchecked or placing them into other people’s hands. In practice, it is often the opposite.

Learning to be vulnerable means being able to sit with your feelings long enough to understand them. To recognise what belongs to you, and what does not.

Many people cope with uncomfortable emotions by displacing them. You have a hard day at work and snap at your partner. You feel powerless and become critical. You feel hurt and respond with anger.

This is sometimes referred to as “kicking the dog”. The phrase comes from the idea that when someone cannot safely express anger or frustration towards its true source, they unconsciously redirect it somewhere safer. Not because they want to hurt, but because the feeling has to go somewhere.

Most of us have done this. And most of us have been on the receiving end of it.

In relationships, this pattern can be particularly painful. You may find yourself reacting to your partner in ways that do not quite match the situation, or feeling blamed for something that does not fully belong to you.

Counselling helps you notice these patterns without shaming yourself for having them. Because these patterns are human. They are learned ways of coping with feelings that once felt too risky to hold directly.

Vulnerability is the moment you pause and say “something is happening in me. Let me find the courage to turn towards it, rather than away from it or on to someone else.”

When you can do this, even imperfectly, your relationships begin to change. Conversations become clearer. Conflict becomes less explosive. Emotional intimacy deepens, because you are no longer asking others to carry feelings that belong to you.

Learning vulnerability through relationship

One of the reasons counselling can feel so powerful is because vulnerability is not learned in isolation. It is learned in relationship.

Often, you first practise this with your counsellor. The therapy room becomes a kind of rehearsal space. A place where you can notice what you feel, say it out loud, and discover that the relationship survives.

You might express anger and find it can be held. You might show uncertainty and find it is met with curiosity rather than judgement. You might admit to thoughts or feelings you have never voiced before and realise you are still accepted. This can be a deeply powerful experience.

It is not intellectual. It is emotional and embodied. Over time, it begins to soften long held fears about what happens if you are truly yourself.

Your counsellor models this way of being too. Staying present. Not reacting defensively. Taking responsibility for their own responses and, at times, sharing what they notice in the room, often referred to as immediacy. This modelling matters more than advice ever could.

Gradually, like learning anything new, what is practised in the therapy room becomes available in your everyday life. With your partner. At work. With friends and family.

Understanding others before understanding yourself

Interestingly, you may not start by applying this awareness to yourself. You may start with other people.

You might ask, “why does my boss snap at me?”

“Why does my partner shut down?”

“Why does my parent criticise everything I do?”

Through counselling, you may begin to see these behaviours differently. Perhaps your boss is under pressure and displacing stress. Perhaps your partner learned that emotional withdrawal was safer than conflict. Perhaps your parent’s criticism says more about their own fear than your worth.

This shift can be profoundly relieving. It helps you realise that not everything is personal. That other people too are shaped by their histories and coping strategies.

And then something important happens.

With that same lens of understanding, you begin to turn inward.

“Oh. I do that too; I project my anxiety on to my partner.”

“I use anger to cover sadness.”

“I withdraw when I feel overwhelmed.”

“I become who I think others want me to be.”

Because this insight arrives through compassion rather than accusation, it is far easier to receive. And with that awareness comes choice.

From judgement to responsibility

This is where vulnerability deepens.

Counselling does not ask you to blame yourself for your patterns. It invites you to take responsibility for them.

Responsibility says, this is mine to notice, to understand, and to work with.

It is very different from self criticism, which says, ‘there is something wrong with me.’

When you can take responsibility for your own emotional responses, something loosens. You no longer need others to behave differently in order for you to feel okay. You become more able to respond rather than react.

This can be transformative in romantic relationships. Arguments become less about winning or defending, and more about understanding. You are better able to say, ‘this is what I feel, this is what I need, and this is what belongs to me.’

It also changes work relationships, friendships, and family dynamics. You are less pulled into drama. Less affected by other people’s unprocessed emotions. More grounded in yourself.

Why therapy keeps bringing the focus back to you

You may notice that counselling often brings the focus back to you, even when other people seem to be the problem.

This is not because the impact of others is minimised. It is because lasting change comes from understanding your own internal world.

When you can explore what is uniquely stirred in you by a particular dynamic, you gain agency. You are no longer carrying other people’s unresolved emotions as your own.

Life begins to make more sense.

Patterns become visible. Choices expand. Emotional reactions feel less overwhelming.

Becoming more yourself

Over time, learning to be vulnerable allows you to live less from old scripts and more from authenticity.

You feel more at home in yourself, even when life is difficult. Less governed by shame or fear of judgement. More able to tolerate the full range of human experience.

This is not a one time achievement. It is an ongoing practice. But it is one that changes how you experience your relationships and your life.

Many people describe feeling more genuine, more grounded, and more alive.

Why this work is life changing

When you can feel your feelings without judging yourself, without projecting them on to others, and without shrinking yourself to fit outdated expectations, life opens up.

You are no longer living as the person someone else needed you to be a long time ago.

You are living as you.

At Hammock Counselling, we believe this kind of vulnerability is not a weakness. It is a skill, learned slowly and relationally, that allows you to engage fully with your own life and your relationships.

If any part of this has resonated, you are not alone. And you do not have to figure it out by yourself.

Counselling offers a space to understand yourself more deeply, relate differently to others, and begin living with greater ease, authenticity, and connection.

If you want to learn more or have any questions, just reach out.

In the meantime thanks for reading,

Ed

(Hammock co-founder & private practice therapist)