The Icky Wicky Side of Brave


Whew!!!

For the coffee drinkers reading this...take another gulp. For those who dabble in a stronger spirit, this we would be the time to take a sip....or gulp. ;)

*Sigh*

A few weeks ago, I was honored to be asked to do a presentation that occurs later this week, and it is more of a facilitation than a presentation...but it doesn't matter because I am somewhere between sadness and pure terror.

So last week...not my best week ever. Challenging...well, that would be an understatement. Boy! 42 came in with a hammer. ;)  So, the concepts of being brave, vulnerability, how to Be., shame, and the all-time zinger..."you attract what you are"...well, these topics were harsh...because they were front-and-center...right in my face...all up in my personal space...too close for comfort....

You get the point. :)

I digress....

So, as I thought about the task that I knew was mine in preparing for this facilitation (I am being a little vague because I am not sure how big of a secret it is, and more than a few people that might not need to know read this ;)), I kept pushing it to the side...a task I DID not want. Okay, I wanted it...I was honored...but I did not feel worthy, and I was sure I could not get through it without crying...and well, nobody wants or needs to see that...:)

I have gravitated the past week between feeling tremendously blessed and severely cursed, but while the bluntness of the quote above should have taken me out. Taken. Me. Out. after a week like this...I went back to the task that lay before me and I smiled...broadly.

I have been honored to be a part of some amazing kids' lives. Well, they are not kids anymore. They are doing amazing things in Greece, in Africa, at Harvard, in Fayetteville, in Memphis, in Little Rock, and in hundreds of dots, big and small, in between on the map.  They are making a difference in their work, in their families, in their communities, in their worlds, and mostly in their own lives. They are brave. They are bold. They are remarkable. They are individuals.  I have had the blessing to be a part of their lives in the most minuscule of ways...through circumstance, geography, and mother of all gifts in this area...social media. I continue to watch them grow and change and do things that make me a little bit braver in my life...Every. Day. 

Who knew a bunch of 18 year olds could change my life...but they have...they did...they do...they will. :)))

For all of my big talk, I am the first to say that being brave sucks. Yeah...I said it...it SUCKS.  It is not easy. It is messy. It is sticky. It is the most icky wicky part of my life. It is all of that right before it is amazing...and brilliant....and a true testament to love...to connection...to life.

I am not worthy...right up until the point that I remember that I...am...in fact....Worthy.

I am going to cry this week. I am going to hurt. I am going to feel a crushing in my heart as I say some good-byes. I am going to feel unworthy. I am going to remind myself that I am worthy. I am going to believe I am worthy. I am going to be vulnerable in a room full of people. I am not going to care (maybe) what they think of me or my tears or my vulnerability or my exuberance towards a group of kids who amaze me and touch me deep in my heart.

You DO attract what you are...

It is time for me to get comfortable with that...I am a woman who is very uncomfortable right now. {Envision me squirming in my seat. :)}

I think the reminder for me this week is not simply that I do attract the good things in my life that come to me, but that I need to work to do more of whatever that is...and less of whatever is attracting negative energy towards me.

Hmmmm....

Hilde...just hush. :)))

I worry too much. I worry way too much. I had someone text me this week out of the blue that has been so cruel to me that even now it can take my breath, and I didn't respond...oh how I wanted to respond, but I didn't...I just deleted it...and went on.  In fact, I hadn't thought of it again until now....the point is that it is my choice on whether or not to accept that negativity into my life. I have to be okay that there are people in my life who don't and won't understand that...and that is okay...they haven't been in my moccasins...not even once.

A lot of the negative energy in our lives we let in ourselves, and let me tell you...that is one of the hardest things I have ever had to admit....and it took me a long time. A. Long. Time.

If I want goodness and bravery and vulnerability and empathy into my life...I have to be willing to live those things and accept people into my life who live those things as well...and then I have to be sure to demonstrate it to others.  You never know...the vulnerability you show, might be the catalyst in someone else breaking down their own walls and risking being brave.

This is a complicated subject that I am NO expert on...but I am learning...Every. Day. I am learning to be okay in showing others my growth...all the icky wicky messy growth. :)


"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
 Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Sunshine Dreams to You ~ Today and Every Day! :)