I have not underlined this much in a book since graduate school.
Bright Spirit, the spiritual book club that I co-host with Dina of Crystalicious NYC, studied Rising Strong by Brené Brown as our most recent pick. This book quickly became a part of my soul. I, too, struggle with vulnerability. I was the girl who knew all of the answers in elementary school. That girl became the young woman who never asked any questions because she didn’t want anyone to know that she didn’t know something. That girl-turned-young-woman equated knowing and being right with being accepted and loved. She may not have been able to do it all, but she sure knew her stuff. And no one could peek behind that all-knowing curtain.
Rising Strong is the first of Brown’s works that I read, although I was already familiar with her through Her Royal Highness Ms. Oprah Winfrey. I enjoyed Brown’s talks that I watched but didn’t really “get it” until I read the book. It’s always about timing.
Here are just a few of the thousands of words I underlined… literally picking these for you by opening to a random page and sharing.
On “reckoning with emotion,” Brown directs the reader to, “Give yourself permission to feel emotion, get curious about it, pay attention to it and practice… awkward, uncomfortable practice.” For me, this was a clear reminder of what I teach but don’t always remember to implement myself. We must attend to our feelings, emotions, joys and pains if we want to grow. If we are good with sitting exactly where we are right now, then just ignore the tough stuff. Stuff it down. Keep busy and try not to feel. But, when we are ready to thrive, we must examine those feelings, white, black and every stormy shade of gray, to work, heal and flourish. That often takes help. Remind me to ask for help when you see that I need it.
Brown writes, “…our silence about grief serves no one. We can’t heal if we can’t grieve; we can’t forgive if we can’t grieve. We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend.” When we lose someone or something, it’s like there’s this designated period we are supposed to be sad for—no longer and definitely no shorter. At my day job, we get 5 bereavement days when a family member dies. I have a sinking suspicion that it will take me more than a week to get my head together after one of my parent’s passes. In that same vein, if someone is back after 1 day, I’m not sitting in judgment. I’m just hugging in support. Face it on your own time.
Brown enforces from C.R. Snyder’s research that “Hope is not an emotion: It’s a cognitive process… Hope happens when we can set goals, have the tenacity and perseverance to pursue those goals, and believe in our abilities to act.” Hope carries varied connotations. I’ve heard people instruct others not to hope because that’s giving an option for something not to happen—like I hope I get the promotion vs. I will get the promotion. While I agree that we should manifest our desires with unwavering certainty, I feel like hope is a beautiful thing. I hope for a beautiful future for everyone on the planet. I hope everyone can find the peace that I feel right now. It’s kind of mincing words… but that’s what we do, isn’t it?
After this… I’m jumping (albeit backwards) into Brown’s Daring Greatly. Join me? Much love.