The Secret Superpower of Vulnerability

Key points

Vulnerability is often rooted in past trauma or pain.

When we embrace our authentic selves, we increase resilience.

While opening ourselves up to another can be scary, it also has the potential for deeper connection.

Exploring our own vulnerability can help us create meaning in our everyday lives.

We begin with a fairy tale...

Fritz Breithaupt is a cognitive neuroscientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies the role of narrative in our lives. In his book The Narrative Brain: The Stories Our Neurons Tell , he points out that most of the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales center on the vulnerability of their heroes. This vulnerability is often borne out of an earlier trauma—abandonment or orphanhood, for example—which leaves its character hypervigilant