The Power of Vulnerability and Self-Care on the Healing Journey

Being vulnerable is hard. Prioritizing your self-care can sometimes feel even harder. And yet these two things hold tremendous healing and transformative power on your path to living a radiant life.

I’m Dr. Sheetal Ajmani, a physician and the founder of Radiant Living Institute where I guide highachieving professional women to get unstuck and learn to live radiantly again as they navigate personal and professional crises.

Through my own personal journey through career burnout and divorce, I’ve dived deep into Eastern and Western modalities of grief healing, trauma recovery, and well-being.

I’ve packed two decades of personal and professional exploration of these tools into my signature program, Reclaim Your Radiance, to create a powerful six-step program that has already helped countless women create jobs they love, cultivate nourishing relationships, and rediscover joy in their lives.

Here’s the thing, in today's world social media often portrays these seemingly perfect lives and so it's all too easy to fall into the trap of comparison and feelings of inadequacy. But here's a piece of advice I first heard years ago, and it’s this:

Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.

The truth is that you can never truly know what’s going on behind the scenes of those picture-perfect posts. Instead, it’s vital to your well-being to resist this urge to compare and instead honor where you are on your own journey.

You see, I truly believe that life’s challenges are the greatest catalyst for self-empowerment.

In fact, this is one of the core principles and tenets of Radiant Living Institute. Life does not present you with challenges solely to make you suffer; rather, these are opportunities for you to dive deeper into your own selfexploration. If you allow it to be, these difficulties can be seen as signposts guiding you to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the most radiant version of yourself.

Now, being “radiant” doesn’t necessarily mean life becomes sunshine and rainbows, or that you’re smiling and laughing all the time. Rather, living radiantly means knowing that the world is always changing, but that the true source of your peace and happiness comes from within. That no matter what happens in your external world, you are unbreakable because there is an ever-present truth, wisdom and strength that resides within.

So what does this have to do with vulnerability and practicing self-care. Well, let’s start with selfcare. What is self-care anyways? Adapted from the Oxford dictionary, my favorite definition relates to “the practice of taking an active role in maintaining one’s physical, mental and emotional well-being, particularly during times of stress.”

I like to emphasize that it’s a “practice,” meaning it’s not perfect. There does not come a time when suddenly you say, “Yup, self-care … I’ve mastered that!” Rather, it’s a continual journey.

Why?

Because life is always changing. You are constantly presented with new situations, experiences, and people.

Therefore, your selfcare will also look different during different seasons of your life.

Additionally, self-care requires taking “an active role.” This means that you need to actually think about it, be intentional with it, and create space in your life for it. Self-care doesn’t “just happen;” rather, you create it. When you take an active role to practice self-care during periods of calm, it becomes easier to lean into the tools during periods of stress when you need it most!

And now here’s where vulnerability comes in. It can feel vulnerable to prioritize your self-care. You’re used to putting everyone else’s needs first. You may have been raised to be a people-pleaser and so setting boundaries, saying “no,” and choosing to say “yes” to yourself instead can feel like a really hard and uncomfortable step to take. You may feel selfish or guilty about doing so at first. It can feel uncomfortable to express your needs when you’re not used to it.

But, when you realize that practicing self-care is the least selfish thing you can do, then this shifts everything. You see, while you drain and deplete yourself to meet everyone else’s expectations of you, you are no longer able to show up as your best self for those who you are trying to please. Well then, you’re no longer showing up for yourself or for them.

To shift this paradigm to a winwin situation, you must prioritize your well-being. And you do so through the practice of selfcare. Through taking the first uncomfortable step of being vulnerable and admitting that you’re going through something hard. That you need to allow for grace in your life and give yourself permission to pause, step back if needed so that you can lean into healing yourself and showing up as your best self.

And so while I realize that all of this can feel big, hard, and scary, I want to close with this imparting wisdom that is another core tenet of Radiant Living Institute - small changes make a large impact. In other words, start small.

This could look any number of ways, including:

Give yourself an intentional pause. Take 1-3 minutes every morning to sit in stillness, perhaps while sipping your morning coffee or tea without distraction.

Journal for five minutes daily. This will help you clear through the thoughts racing in your mind.

Make an appointment with a therapist, coach, or guide.

Go for a walk.

Call a friend.

These are just a few examples of ways to get started. Choose one of these to try this week and then notice how you feel afterwards.