The Call to Bravery.


Have you ever known that you can’t be brave without vulnerability? I can understand why it’s complicated for some people to get that. It took me 12 years of trying to disprove that I had to be vulnerable to be brave. There is always a life event that causes this to come to life for all of us, when you capture the spirit of vulnerability and finding courage in the way you live, love, lead and parent.

You can study shame, yet you are not prepared for the terrible cesspool of humanity on the world. The shame is this feeling that you would get if you walked out of the room that was filled with people who know you, and they start saying hurtful things about you, that you don’t know if you could ever walk back in and face them again in your life. And for me the fear of shame, the fear of criticism has been so great in my life up until that paralyzing point that I engineered smallness in my life. Sometimes we don’t take chances. We do not put ourselves out there until something happen and there is everything that you have feared in the entire life.

Sometimes we are vacillating between two things; “God, just let me die right now. Just suck me up, Earth,” and “I am prepared for this. I have these certain degrees, I am very strong, I am prepared fr this crisis. Like, I am trained for this moment.” And you are looking for that particular food, treats, movies, or anything that brings back the positive happy mood.

Then I have the God moment, like descending in my hiding room, and I read this comforting quote; “It’s not the critic who counts. It’s not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done it different. The credit belongs to the person who’s actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again and again, and who in the end, while he may know the triumph of high achievement, and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” By Theodore Roosevelt.

There is my life before that quote and my life after that quote. Three things become very clear to me that were really life altering. One, I am going to live in the arena. I am going to be brave with my life. I am going show up. I am going to take chances. Even if I am going to get my ass kicked. I can’t avoid that unfortunately. There will be falling, failing, heartbreak, but that’s my choice, choosing courage over comfort. I can’t make commitment for tomorrow, but I choose to be brave.

The second thing that became very clear to me, is that quote was everything I’ve learned about vulnerability. Vulnerability is not about winning. It is not about losing. It’s having the courage to show up when you can’t control the outcome. Many different people have talked about vulnerability where it ranged from it being the first date after a divorce. Trying to get pregnant after the second miscarriage. Sitting with a wife wha has stage four breast cancer making plans for the kids. Getting fired. Firing someone. Saying “I love you” first. 

The last thing I learned that day in my God moment with Theodore Roosevelt, is that, If I am not in the arena, getting my ass kicked on occasion because I was being brave, I am not interested in or open to your feedback about my deeds unless you are on my list of the people whose their opinion matters to me, people who truly love me, not despite my imperfection and vulnerability but because of my imperfection and vulnerabilty. There are millions of cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never once step foot in that arena but have time to hurl criticism and judgment and really hurtful things towards us.

Don’t grab that hurtful stuff from the cheap seats and pull it closer to you. We have to let them drop to the floor.  We don’t have to stomp on it or kick it.  Just step over it and keep going. You can’t listen negative things and feedback from people who are not being brave with their lives. That can crush you. We usually reserve using people’s vulnerability against them for the people we love the most. Because we are scared when we see vulnerability in other people. Many of us want love, intimacy, joy… You can’t have that if you don’t let yourself be seen. How can you let yourself be loved if you can’t be seen? 

Vulnerability is the path back to each other, but we are so afraid to get on it. And we end up hurting each other a lot. Vulnerability is like gooey center of hard emotion., shame, scarcity, fear, anxiety and uncertainty. We don’t want to be vulnerable, we want to armor up, stay protected. But we as we forget that vulnerability is also the birthplace of love, belonging and joy. You love someone and you are not 100% sure that person will always love you back, will never leave, never get sick, bury them, lose them for good..

To love is to be vulnerable. To give someone your heart and say, “I know this could hurt so bad, but I am willing to be vulnerable and love you.” There are millions of people who will never take that risk. They’d rather never know love than to know hurt, a grief, and that is a huge price to pay. Belonging. We are wired for love, we are hardwired for belonging, this is in our DNA. And the opposite of belonging is “fitting in.”

Belonging is belonging to yourself first. Speaking your truth, telling your story, and never betraying yourself for other people. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are but to be who you are, and that is vulnerable.

And the last is joy, the most vulnerable of all human emotions. We are terrified to feel joy. We are so afraid that if we let ourselves feel joy, something will come along, and rip it away from us, and we will get sucker punched by pain and trauma and loss. So that in the midst of great things, you literally dress rehearse tragedy while when you lean free into joy, you only share GRATITUDE.

Let’s not use our vulnerability as warning to start dress-rehearsing for bad things but try to use it as a reminder to be grateful. “When you are grateful for that you have, I understand that you understand the magnitude of what I’ve lost.” Gratitude is healing for some people. We get so busy sometimes chasing the extraordinary moments that we don’t pay attention to the ordinary moments. The moments that, if taken away, we would miss more that anything.

Vulnerability gives birth to other really important things such as empathy, trust, innovation, creativity, inclusivity, equity, hard conversations, feedback, problem solving, decision making. No vulnerability, no creativity. No tolerance for failure, no innovation. If you are not willing to build a vulnerable culture, you can’t create. There is no courage without vulnerability. Vulnerability is hard and scary and dangerous. But I am asking you to show up, be seen, answer the call to bravery, and come off the blocks, because YOU ARE WORTHY BEING BRAVE.

Thank you BB.

 Continue Reading