Dr. Brene Brown, who gave a wildly popular TED talk (over 19 million views!) called The Power of Vulnerability, says a vulnerability hangover is:
“The feeling that sweeps over us after we feel the need to connect– and we share something deeply meaningful. Minutes, hours, or days later, we begin to feel regret sweep over us like a warm wave of nausea.”
In a follow-up TED talk, she admitted:
“I woke up the morning after I gave that Talk with the worst vulnerability hangover of my life. And I actually didn’t leave my house for about three days.”
Obviously, I operate on a much smaller scale than Brene Brown, but after announcing a couple of weeks ago that my 7th novel, Temple Secrets, is out, I felt the same way. I just wanted to find a nice rock to crawl under. At least for a little while. Luckily it didn’t last more than a few days.
Like most career writers, I pour everything I have into my books. All my creativity, my humor, my 20 years of knowledge in how to write a good story. All of it. And I work on a manuscript for YEARS, making it the best book I can possibly make it. Even seven books later, it is still a big deal to let them go. They are like children I’ve protected and nurtured that I release into the big/bad/wonderful world to be read and reviewed and perhaps even ignored. Not easy.
I could be wrong about this, but I wonder if vulnerability hangovers happen mostly to women. (I’d love to hear what the men reading think about this.) Especially those of us who have been told by our culture and families to stay small and pretty and not speak our minds or share our imaginations.
As a result, any time we do something bold, brave or even the least bit different than the people around us, we feel threatened, exposed and vulnerable.
As the character Queenie would say in Temple Secrets: “Sweet God in Heaven, what was I thinking?!”
The GOOD NEWS is: if we have vulnerability hangovers, that means we’re living a bigger life.
It means we’re putting ourselves out there in the arena (another Brene Brown saying) and perhaps putting our work out there, too.
While others are staying small and safe, we’re stretching ourselves. 
Some might think of this as the hero’s journey or the road less traveled. It is the stretch required of a bigger life. A stretch that feels scary, but that tells us we’re still growing and reaching for the light and making the effort to spread our light to others.
Have you had a vulnerability hangover lately? I hope so. xo
P.S. If you’re feeling a little too shy to comment, please consider posting this on your favorite social media platform.
I’ve just had a hangover. Thursday was my birthday. Celebrated with sake. Last night we had Italian and popped a bottle of wine we’d bought in Napa last week.
I don’t know if I’ll react the way you did, but more and more I’m thinking self-pub is the way to go for me. When I see the “literary fiction” Americans are publishing, and then I read something like the new novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North by the brilliant Australian writer Richard Flanagan, I realize what a gap there is between the best American fiction and the best *fiction.* I’m not saying Welsey Shaw is anything near as brilliant as Flanagan’s work, but it does have some things in common: it doesn’t have a big “hook,” it doesn’t scream COMMERCIAL, it doesn’t have a snappy title (so many agents have told me I need a snappy title, citing examples like The Hunger Games or The Walking Dead or Insurgent), it’s about concepts and ideas and not physical action. There are few American writers today dealing in that stuff–well-known ones, anyway, and please don’t cite Jonathan Franzen, which is what I’m always told. His “ideas” are at the 1st grader level. So more and more I’m thinking either trying agents in other parts of the English-speaking world or going it alone. So that’s the sort of “vulnerability hangover” I’m having. As long as I can justify to myself the reason for every scene and every page, I’m happy.
Okay, that was longer than I wanted to post… 🙂
No other comments? Maybe everyone’s hungover.
Hi John,
I was getting worried there for a while that this post wouldn’t get a single comment. I find it interesting how some posts generate a lot of comments and others don’t. It is all one big experiment anyway. I was rather proud of this post because I admitted feeling vulnerable and shared more of myself than usual. So there you go. Perhaps in this culture it isn’t cool to admit how we feel. But I am willing to be uncool.
At any rate, I thank you for writing what’s on your mind. I like the way your mind works, and I look forward to reading Welsey Shaw in whatever form it eventually takes.
Sorry for the delay in responding to your comment, I actually took a mini vacation and was out of town. No hangovers there, but lots of walks on the beach, some amazing meals and visiting with old friends. Life is good.
P.S. Happy Birthday! Wish I could have celebrated with you. Don’t get me started on Jonathon Franzen. He writes characters that I don’t want to spend any time with. I tried for a while, since he’s supposed to be this amazing writer, but I just don’t see the allure. He probably wouldn’t enjoy my novels, either.
I don’t if he writes characters I wouldn’t want to spend time with: I wouldn’t want to spend time with Hitler either but found Ian Kershaw’s two-volume, two-thousand page biography of him to be compelling.
My biggest problems with Franzen are 1) graceless prose (or pretentious and phony when it’s “graceful”) and 2) he’s Captain Obvious. His characters telegraph things I knew long ago, glad you just got on board, Jonny.
Yes some of my favorite posts also don’t get a lot of comments. I loved one I wrote about a year ago about Vladimir Horowitz but it received no reaction. Probably most of the youngish people who read my blog have no idea who he is–or care.