Dear Brené,
I hope you don’t mind me calling you Brené. I’ve never met you in person, but I’ve read your books and watched your TED talks and feel like I know you.
In Rising Strong you give voice to so many things I feel, but haven’t been able to articulate. You’ve given me a language around the process of falling and failing and getting back up again.
Brené, I’m with you—
The more I learn,
the less I know.
I’ve learned to give up my pursuit of netting certainty
and pinning it to the wall.
Boom! You got me in sentence two of Chapter One!
I can’t seem to pin down anything at the moment. I’m being challenged, stretched, confronted, provoked and, after reading your books, totally okay with that.
Brené when you encourage me to be brave, to embrace vulnerability — I’m totally in.
I want to be in the arena—be brave with my life.
I want to show up and be seen, even when I have no control over the outcome.
Brené, I did my homework. I studied your ten laws and, to be honest, I’m a little undone.
Daring means I can say I will eventually fail and I’m still all in?
Brené—I’m in!
Now I’m in, I can’t fake it any more?
I can’t go back?
Falling changes us?
I’ll be homesick for a place that no longer exists?
I can’t go back to that moment before I entered the arena?
I thought I was brave going into the arena. Now you’re telling me that it’s going to take even more courage to go forward? There’s no way out?
Then you tell me the journey is my own?
I must cope on my own, but I must also learn to ask for and receive help?
Brené does that sound like the Lord of the Rings trilogy to you?
I totally get that we’re wired for story, but I was blown away by the idea that story is literally in our DNA.
We feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories—it’s our biology.
I used to be a high school teacher and I get it when you say that creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands.
But, engaging with my emotions is really, really, really,really difficult. I want to avoid, hide, run from, and squash my emotions, especially when there’s conflict. So when you tell me that, good leaders don’t avoid emotions. They engage with them. They lean into discomfort and vulnerability, I may not like you as much as I first indicated.
But, I’ll trust you. You’re my friend. Right?
I like the next law. I can expand my compassion. My personality is wired this way. Finally, a law I can excel at!
Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world.
Brené when you say, You can’t engineer an emotional, vulnerable, and courageous process into an easy, one-size-fits-all formula, are you kidding? I thought this book outlined a step-by-step-overnight-user-friendly process. I’m sorry, but I feel duped. I believe you, but I wish being brave was as easy as dishing up two-minute noodles.
It can take twenty minutes or twenty years.
Some people get stuck in one spot
for ten years. There are patterns,
but no formula. You can’t perfect it
so it’s fast and easy.
Oh Brené! Courage IS contagious. That’s why my friends and I love your books so much. You’ve helped us to be brave. One day, when we grow up, we want to be as contagious as you.
Courage is contagious. Rising Strong changes people around you. It can be a clarion call for more daring or a painful mirror for the soul.
There have been times in my life I was so certain, convinced, cocksure.
But, the more I learn, the less I know.
Rising Strong is a spiritual practice. It must be spiritual…
Our expressions of spirituality are as diverse as we are…
Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning,
and purpose to our lives.
Some of us call that power greater than ourselves
God.
My spirituality influences everything you’re encouraging me to be. Brave. Vulnerable. Daring.
God is my fulcrum point. My centre. My certainty in uncertainty. But…
My spirituality is also going through a process. It’s in the arena. It’s being tested. It’s being questioned. It’s becoming less one-dimensional. It’s becoming more like the God I love—beyond comprehension, all encompassing.
My spirituality is becoming vulnerable. Brave. Daring.
Brené, I’ve only read Chapter One and I’m in.
Elaine
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