Moral hangover after exposing yourself too much can also be rewarding

In early August, at a bar in Washington, Erin Pedati told a group of friends that she was depressed. They were good friends. They responded with empathy and compassion. But the next day, Erin, 40, felt awkward.

“Part of me was relieved, because it’s important to have these conversations,” she said. “But I was also like, ‘Oh my god, what did I say?’ You replay the conversation in your head and think, ‘They didn’t respond to my message.

Instead of a booze hangover—”Frankly, it would have been easier to deal with,” Erin said jokingly—she was feeling a “vulnerability hangover,” or, a moral hangover. It’s a term coined by research professor Brené Brown at the University of Houston to describe the anxiety, shame and remorse a person can feel after revealing something very personal.

As humans, we have competing needs, said Emma Seppala, scientific director of Stanford University’s Center for Research and Education in Compassion and Altruism and author of “The Happiness Track.” We have a need to “bond with other people, showing them who we really are, but also obeying social norms and not sharing too much.”

The problem is that it can be difficult to meet these two needs simultaneously. Sharing has the potential reward of intimacy, but, Seppala said, it also leaves a person open to the fear of being judged or rejected.

“We might think, ‘Is this person going to think less of me now? Have I shown a weakness? Am I safe?’

Vulnerability hangovers can be bothersome, but they don’t have to be debilitating. And it might even help you.

PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

For starters, know that other people probably won’t think as much as you do about what you’ve revealed. Thanks to a phenomenon known as “the beautiful confusion effect,” we often view our own manifestations of vulnerability more negatively than other people.

Think about how you react to other people’s moments of weakness, Seppala said. Do you identify more with a guest at a party who is giving a stilted intellectual speech or with the person who drops something on his shirt and is embarrassed?

Most people identify with the second person, “because it’s being natural,” she said. “When a person is being natural, that empowers us to be too.”

Rest assured: any remorse you feel will likely be short-lived. Research suggests that, in the short term, we tend to dwell on the things we wish we hadn’t done. But in the longer term, we often regret the things we wish we had done and didn’t, said Amy Summerville, a researcher at Kairos Research in Dayton, Ohio, who studies remorse.

“It makes sense that at first you’d think ‘wow, why did I say that?'” Summerville said. But that feeling usually disappears when you reflect on how long you’ve known a person.

KNOW YOU MAY HAVE HELPED SOMEONE

Studies reveal that vulnerability can promote intimacy and foster trust. It is a phenomenon that is important during a pandemic that is not yet over, when many of us are still feeling isolated.

At a work event with people she hasn’t seen face to face since 2019, Nicole Baker, 43, ended up revealing that she had recently been treated for breast cancer. This prompted another person present at the conference to confide that she had had a stroke that year.

“We ended up having a really good conversation about health issues at work. We wouldn’t have talked about it if I hadn’t shared it first,” said Denver, who works for an NGO (non-governmental organization) in Denver.

And vulnerability isn’t just beneficial among friends and colleagues. Research has revealed that vulnerable bosses make better leaders. “People are more comfortable with you,” Seppala said. “You’re showing that you’re human. It puts people at ease.”

TAKE IT LIKE A LEARNED

The first researchers to discover the “beautiful mess” effect also found that people who practice self-compassion are less critical of their own “confusions” than people who do not.

One way to let go of the self-judgment of having shared something is to convert it into something constructive, said Michael Tennant, creator of the actually Curious card game, which fosters empathy and trust. “Think, ‘What can I learn from this?'”

Examining what prompted you to share something personal — whether it was an unintentional slip-up or an intentional attempt to form a bond with another — can help inform your future choices, said clinical psychologist Carla Manly of Santa Rosa, California.

Replacing exaggerated self-criticism with curiosity can help you define your comfort zone and raise awareness: “Okay, I don’t mind talking about my anxiety or depression, but I need to be more careful when I talk about my finances,” Manly said.

Regret is the psychological version of the pain you feel when you touch a hot stove, Summerville said: It’s helpful because you can try not to make the same mistake twice. But neither may you plunge yourself into a vicious circle of fruitless musings or repetitive intrusive thoughts that come to nothing.

“If you tend to ruminate on things — if it’s something that pops into your head unintentionally and you’re not getting anywhere new — that could be a problem,” Summerville said. Her research has found a correlation between ruminative thinking and depression, but that doesn’t indicate a cause-and-effect relationship.

“But if you’re learning something new – like ‘wow, that wasn’t the right thing to say to that person at the time’, it might help you do better in the future.”

MAKE A PLAN FOR NEXT TIME

Despite the potential benefits of revealing something personal, there are still times when you might want to keep things to yourself.

The problem is that talking about ourselves is gratifying. For example, in a small 2020 study, participants who were given money to answer questions liked sharing their thoughts so much that they gave up 25% of their pay to be able to share their answers, rather than keeping them low-key.

It’s especially difficult after the last few years, because we live in a time where we’re thirsty for human contact, but our rusty social skills can lead us to share too much, said psychotherapist and social worker Jared Dalton of London, Ontario.

When alcohol, which impairs judgment, enters the story too, our defenses can drop even higher. “The minute we include alcohol in a situation, we often end up sharing more than we would if we were just having coffee with someone else,” Manly said.

Dalton, who often works with ADHD (attention deficit disorder) patients to train impulse control strategies, suggested that people take a “reflection pause” — whether it’s taking a deep breath or going to the bathroom — before disclosing information. very personal.

“Where does the urge to open up come from?” he said. “Is it because you really want to get close to the other person? Or is it because you’re feeling lonely and just want to connect with someone?”

Thinking about your ultimate goal “can help you hold back if you have to,” he said. And the same thing applies to sharing things online, a space where the connection you seek with others can be harder to achieve.

Exposing your innermost feelings on social media can make you feel especially exposed “if there’s not the counterpart you wanted,” Dalton said. “If you have a thousand friends, you share something super personal and you only get ten likes, it can be deeply disappointing.”

Still, don’t let the vulnerability hangover put you off.

The “day after” vulnerability can be unpleasant or surprising, but it’s often worth it, Seppala said. In the emotional intelligence classes she teaches at Yale University, she has already realized that “the more vulnerable and sincere I show myself with the examples I give, the better I can communicate my message.”

Feeling comfortable with the aftereffects of vulnerability “takes courage at first, but it’s like a muscle that you grow stronger.”

Tennant, who is writing a book on vulnerable courage, said he’s come to see it as a superpower. “So many people are used to hiding their vulnerability that when I approached her, people were usually touched.”

Translation by Clara Allain