I'm a little obsessed with Supergirl.
less right mind. more courageous heart.
Me. For better or worse, here I am.
I think I’ve lulled myself into a false sense of security by pretending that the only people who read this live millions of miles away. When I picture people from my church or my neighborhood or mothers from my kids’ schools reading this, I feel a little sick. It would be so wonderful if you could click a button that activated a geography shield. Anyone living within a 50-mile radius must request permission to read your blog.
Luckily, I’ve done enough work to reality-check this fear. The truth is that very few people are paying attention.
It’s like being afraid to hoist yourself out of the pool during the first days of summer. The cellulite has yet to tan (which we all know makes it look so much better) and just being in a swimsuit feels unnatural and offensive. You grab hold of the silver ladder bars, look around, and if you see people coming, you sink back under the water, pretending like you need to slick back your hair one more time – just to get it right. You re-emerge, grab the bars again, look left and right like a kid learning how to cross the street, and heave-ho. Within 2.6 seconds you're wearing your cover-up and the world feels safe again.
Truth is . . . no one is looking. No one really cares. The only thing really attracting attention is the spy-like, covert nature of your pool exit strategy.
Here’s the good news. I’ve been thinking a lot about a new way to talk about the 2007 breakdown. It would be easier to blog about my experiences and actually get busy writing this new book if I had a more accurate way to describe my adventures in truth-telling, soul-searching and twinkle-lighting. I’ve had several friends make recommendations, including:
Luckily, I’ve done enough work to reality-check this fear. The truth is that very few people are paying attention.
It’s like being afraid to hoist yourself out of the pool during the first days of summer. The cellulite has yet to tan (which we all know makes it look so much better) and just being in a swimsuit feels unnatural and offensive. You grab hold of the silver ladder bars, look around, and if you see people coming, you sink back under the water, pretending like you need to slick back your hair one more time – just to get it right. You re-emerge, grab the bars again, look left and right like a kid learning how to cross the street, and heave-ho. Within 2.6 seconds you're wearing your cover-up and the world feels safe again.
Truth is . . . no one is looking. No one really cares. The only thing really attracting attention is the spy-like, covert nature of your pool exit strategy.
Here’s the good news. I’ve been thinking a lot about a new way to talk about the 2007 breakdown. It would be easier to blog about my experiences and actually get busy writing this new book if I had a more accurate way to describe my adventures in truth-telling, soul-searching and twinkle-lighting. I’ve had several friends make recommendations, including:
- Nervous breakdown (too Knot’s Landing meets Valley of the Dolls)
- A year of full-tilt bozo (closer, but I have a strong dislike of clowns)
- The year I ran out of batteries (this is how Ellen described one of my moments last year, but it doesn’t fully capture the upside)
- Journey into the dark night (too Jung)
- Midlife crisis (too old)
So, I finally asked Diana, “How do you explain last year? What would you call my year-long experience of everything falling apart, then coming back together in a way that has completely transformed the way I live, love and think about life?”
She paused for a second, then smiled, “I would call it a spiritual awakening.”
I was shocked, relieved and joyful all at the same time. I looked at her and asked, “Is that a religious thing?” She said, “No. It’s a spiritual thing – an awakening of spirit.”
I knew she was right. That’s exactly what it was (and continues to be).
On the way home, I thought to myself, “A spiritual awakening. Hmmmm. It’s such a kind and gentle name for such a scary and tough process.”
She paused for a second, then smiled, “I would call it a spiritual awakening.”
I was shocked, relieved and joyful all at the same time. I looked at her and asked, “Is that a religious thing?” She said, “No. It’s a spiritual thing – an awakening of spirit.”
I knew she was right. That’s exactly what it was (and continues to be).
On the way home, I thought to myself, “A spiritual awakening. Hmmmm. It’s such a kind and gentle name for such a scary and tough process.”
Yes, there was a breakdown, but there was also a breakthrough.
Right now, as I’m struggling to slow down and hang on, I want to celebrate the breakthrough piece. When I focus on the breakthrough, I can find the strength and courage I need to make good changes. I feel inspired to return to what I've learned works best in my life. When I only focus on the breakdown, it feels like I’m using fear and shame to scare me into change. Fear and shame never lead to positive, meaningful change. They lie to us about who we are and about our potential (I know. I wrote the book on it).
No one said that staying aware and awake would be easy and I’m pretty sure that an important part of the work is honoring my experience by naming it:
2007 – My Spiritual Awakening. I like it.
Prior to 2007, I didn’t write a sentence without four academic references, six 25cent words, and a small team of copy editors. Now, I have a place to honestly write my way through my journey. What a gift!
Right now, as I’m struggling to slow down and hang on, I want to celebrate the breakthrough piece. When I focus on the breakthrough, I can find the strength and courage I need to make good changes. I feel inspired to return to what I've learned works best in my life. When I only focus on the breakdown, it feels like I’m using fear and shame to scare me into change. Fear and shame never lead to positive, meaningful change. They lie to us about who we are and about our potential (I know. I wrote the book on it).
No one said that staying aware and awake would be easy and I’m pretty sure that an important part of the work is honoring my experience by naming it:
2007 – My Spiritual Awakening. I like it.
Prior to 2007, I didn’t write a sentence without four academic references, six 25cent words, and a small team of copy editors. Now, I have a place to honestly write my way through my journey. What a gift!
I’m so grateful for your stories, support, poems, wisdom, and ideas. Please know that I hold them sacred. And, it’s probably true that no one in her right mind would share all of this with strangers, but now I’m willing to sacrifice a little of my right mind for a little more courageous heart.
Brené Brown
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Reader Comments (19)
Hallelujah! Just consider that sometimes we need a breakdown on the "exterior" to get real on the "interior." Otherwise, we just sail through life and miss out on the deepest marrow of substance...it's painful, it's raw, it's so authentic, it's a bit scary. Jim (husband) quotes a favorite line from Mulan (you know you're parents when quoting Disney...) "The most beautiful flower is the one that blooms in adversity." It's the yin and the yang...
BTW, so glad you don't impose a 50 mile radius ban...and people are listening, those of us that care and have walked near the path you have also tread...occassionally our paths have intertwined. For that, I am forever grateful...Laurel
Hang in there!
Don't get me wrong...I also enjoy those blogs with randomness and kid pictures...I don't like to be deep ALL the time.
But, to read, relate, and be inspired by someone who has gone through "stuff" that I seem to be going through (or might go through in the future)...well, I just think that you're bound to reach, touch, and help someone. Even if it's to let them know they're not alone.
Cheers to the Spiritual Awakening of 2007!!!!!
It is because I live in your same area code and because I have sat in both chairs in the therapy room that your words have such a powerful impact on me! I know it is real. Real is so hard and so wonderfully rewarding.
I have gone through some "spiritual changes" in the last 1 1/2 years too, not yet would I call it an awakening but maybe that is accurate. Spiritual spin would be how it feels. Having done a bit of that in the past, I'm not quite so terrified of the outcomes. Sometimes I can even just be curious of the outcomes.
Thank you for sharing with us in this journey. It feels better when we can remember there are others walking along side of us.
The challenge for me is hanging on to all that I learned from my spiritual awakening. I'm amazing at how easy it is to get back to life as I knew it. I don't want to do that though. I don't want my year of living in the depths to be for not. You know? I want it to matter and to mean something and to have changed my life for the better, and to have been for a purpose. From now until eternity I want to live with purpose and appreciation and love. And I want to have learned. my. lesson, dang it all! 'Cause I don't ever want to have another 'spiritual awakening'. :) And I want to live happily ever after. HA!! Okay, I digress.
I LOVE the title 'spiritual awakening'. So true. For me anyway, so true.
Thank you for being so incredibly authentic about your process and your "spiritual awakening". I have to say that I often think of what you are doing (the blog, the book, the path) as extraordinary courage. If this is ordinary courage we need so much more of it in this world.
Veronique
As do you. So pleased I stumbled (through squarespace.com) upon this post.
My plan: to turn 60 next year with grace, equanimity, enthusiasm, and continued growth. Here's to your continued growth, as well.
what a gift you have... a gift thankfully you are willing to share!
love...
I love your blog. I have taken to reading it in the evenings as an escape while my husband watches Family Guy. I always have the feeling that I'll be inspired. Like a little "fix". So I've been watching the storm before the calm and am glad you are seeing some blue sky. I like your pool analogy, but I don't think that people are not paying attention or that they don't care. I think people relate. I think they may think their own cellulite has yet to tan, too. And if it's okay for you to get in and out of the pool with your cellulite, then maybe they can, too.
Also, while you are rebuilding and testing with your toe to see if it's safe to come back into the world out here, I thought I would share my favorite poem with you.
WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love
what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
--Mary Oliver,
Dream Work
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
thought the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
thought the wind pried
with it's stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
-Mary Oliver
I saw you speak last year in Minneapolis!You were amazing and and inspiration! I can't thank you enough...... What you write just makes sense.
I would love to be the winner for the book drawing on 5/1
I relate closely to most of what you write...and in this moment am facing my next watershed as I parent a 14 year old who now seems to be rebelling and has another parent to run to in his rebellion.
I'm one of your personal cheerleaders....you go girl!
creatingajoyfulplace@gmail.com