Written by Stacey Lindsay

How can we deeply connect with others—honestly, openly, and freely?

This question is essential for the times we live in. It's also an anchor of Vanessa Cornell's work. The mother of five and founder of NUSHU admits she "used to be a total liar" when it came to being vulnerable in front of others. This is not a liar in the sense that you couldn't trust her or that she bent the truth. Quite the opposite. As she says, Vanessa kept her pains, hardships, life struggles, and "anything that was going on in my internal life" close to her chest. It was her default to always put on a smile. And from this, she'd created a "deep, deep, deep loneliness."

It's colossal to think of how many of us can relate, which is why learning more about Vanessa's journey feels like taking a giant exhale. She found the courage to break from the pattern of keeping people at arm's length and decided to go deep. She started telling the truth—the radical, messy, unfiltered, whole truth—about her life to those around her. She was, as she says, "ravenous for knowledge" about how to rip off the avatars of perfection, grow in authenticity, and find a deep connection with herself again. 

When she started to do all this, she began to see the alchemy of freedom that comes from being our true selves, especially in the company of other women doing the same. "It's amazing what happens to women when they hear from each other that they're struggling with the same thing that they're struggling with," she tells me. "It's such a source of connection."

This connection anchors Vanessa's work today. In addition to the courses and offerings she does through her personal brand, she founded NUSHU to offer women a safe space to transform, witness, and be seen through the power of being vulnerable together in person. Through gathering in groups and workshops, women can share their truths and reconnect with themselves. To say that Vanessa's work is needed is an understatement, considering how many of us humans grapple with loneliness and a desire to connect today. We dug in with her to learn more about our need for connection, her path to radical truth-sharing, and how we all can start to share more and get closer to each other and, ultimately, ourselves.

Chatting with Vanessa Cornell

I was recently poring over your Instagram and came across you saying, "We need other people in our lives. We need our women, we need our friends, we need connection." It hit me and is a needed message for our times. Considering our need for connection, what do you see people, specifically those of us who identify as women, wrestling with right now?

We all saw this in Covid, when human connection was taken away from us. We felt the pain of that loss so severely. Now that things have sort of come back to normal, that loss of connection is not really in our face as much, but the truth is, even though we're surrounded by people, most people are still very lonely. There's this unbelievable research that shows how many Americans self-identify as lonely. I'm sure those people are going to the grocery store, where people are around them. I'm sure they're going to work where there are people around them. There may be people inside their homes. But they're not actually connecting with other human beings. And so even if you're surrounded by people, you could still be very, very lonely. So, we've forgotten how to be with one another and open ourselves to another. The only real path to connection is to say, 'Here's who I truly am. Let me show you the whole self of who I truly am.' Otherwise, you're not connecting to another person as who you truly are. You're connecting to another person as your avatar.

It feels like putting our avatar out there has become the default.

It's so much easier now to have an avatar. We have avatars on social media of the person we pretend to be. It's not because we're trying to deceive anyone. It's because it's scary to show who we really are. And we're seeing it modeled to us that a curated version is more acceptable, more praiseworthy, and the person who will attract people and make you feel loved, accepted and valued. But the irony is that's the opposite of what happens. People aren't drawn to the avatar. People are drawn to people being genuine, honest, and vulnerable. We have this perception that we've got to pretend to be someone we're not to gain love when the truth is that when you show people who you really are, they feel drawn and connected to you. We've lost some of our ability to do that, so many people are walking around surrounded by people but ultimately feeling very lonely.

It's encouraging and hopeful to simply hear this and talk about it. In the past, I've been to countless gatherings with many people, where I would put on a smile but then come home feeling depleted and lonely, and often I didn't have the vocabulary for it. So, it's so hopeful just to be talking about this.

There's also a conditioning that happens for women where we think we're supposed to be able to do it all alone. We think we're never supposed to ask for help. But the truth is, we used to live in villages with aunts and sisters and mothers and friends, where raising a family and surviving was a communal effort. Now, we're isolated in our nuclear family, and we have this perception that we're supposed to do it alone, and when we look across at the other nuclear family, the image they're projecting is that they have it all figured out. We think everyone's got it figured out, and everyone else's lives are shiny and perfect. What we have to do is talk to each other—because life is hard, raising a family is hard, and having a job is hard. It's amazing what happens to women when they hear from each other that they're struggling with the same thing that they're struggling with. It's such a source of connection.

So, how do we start to shift this? How do we move away from the avatars, show our real selves, and connect? I know this is a big part of what you offer at NUSHU with your group work.

Sometimes, what we need is just a place of permission. My work in group is about creating an environment where it's explicit that this is where we get to come and be honest. This is the place where we get to say, 'I'll listen to yours if you listen to mine.' If you sit next to someone at a dinner party and they ask, 'How are you?" that's not permission to share how you really are. In that kind of setting, we understand social norms and that no one really wants to know how you are in that kind of setting. We don't necessarily have many places to say, 'This week was hard. This week really sucked. This week, I feel disconnected from my husband, and my kids are driving me crazy, and I'm exhausted.' So in group, we create that environment and people practice being honest with other people. We practice saying things out loud. When we do this, we start to feel such a connection to each other. We start to see that by sharing our real selves, we get the things we want: love and connection. So, this practice happens in group, but I always say 'group is for life, not for group.' Group is a way to put your toe in the water and practice what that feels like.

This work is very personal to you. What compelled you to start it?

My personal story is, I used to be a total liar. The way I was raised was you don't share anything outside of the family. And so I basically didn't tell anyone anything about what was going on in my internal life. When I realized that that had created just deep, deep, deep loneliness for myself, I decided my practice would be the opposite. I decided that my daily practice was that I was going to tell the truth. I tell the truth to my friends about how I feel. I tell the truth to my husband. I tell the truth to my children. I tell the truth on Instagram. The more you hold on to the truth and try to curate it, the more you create layers and layers of falsehood between you and everyone around you. You create your own jail of loneliness because no one knows who you are, what you think or feel, or what you want.

Sometimes, finding and saying what we want can be the hardest question. Do you see this in your work?

I work a lot with women in midlife. Women who have spent a couple of decades, maybe zero to 20, trying to figure out who everyone wants them to be. Then they've spent more decades in a career, maybe raising children, trying to figure out what everybody else needs and wants. And then they get to their forties, and they're like, I don't understand why I don't know what I need and want. It's because you've spent four or more decades practicing ignoring what you want and addressing other people's needs or expectations. We've become so attuned to other people that we're out of practice attuning to ourselves.

When I ask people, 'What do you want? they think it's the most confronting question. And I say, good! That's why we have to keep asking it. We must ask ourselves, How do I feel? What do I need? What do I want? Those are the three questions you need to ask in your midlife, and they're very difficult. But just asking the questions is powerful because it implies how you feel matters, what you need matters, and what you want matters. You may not know the answer, but asking the question of yourself is revolutionary. 

You can learn more about Vanessa at www.vanessacornell.com @vanessacornell and NUSHU at nushu.com.

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