'If courage is a value that you hold--you're going to get your butt kicked. That's it.'--Brené Brown
What makes change so hard? When all we want is the freedom to BE.
Sometimes all you need is courage. The courage to face the nay-sayers, the buddies, or the family. But the greatest challenge to tapping that courage is closer to home then you might think.
You will be the first one to kick your butt when you want change.
All of those years invested in concocted stories to settle for exactly what you never wanted in the first place, just to keep peace.
Who on this earth sold you THAT turkey?
Well, um, you did. And only you can throw that rotting bugger out.
But first you have to accept it as a goof. Not "wrong" or "defective" or any other form of toilet-bowl flotsam. A goof (inject Self-Compassion Clause here).
But wait. What about that knee-jerk, "first-thought-wrong" reaction? Where in the hell did that come from?
Wrong? Defective?
Breathe. Take a step back and look at that toilet bowl. It's actually brimming to the top with old programming, reactions and it all came from you! Inside YOU!
Ok. let's be the grown-up and check this out.
Now, it's in the toilet-bowl, right?
Do you really want to put it back where it came from?
That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? But when it comes to the digested material of our lives and minds, we are trying to do precisely that.
It was familiar, comfortable and maybe even helpful when we put those judgements in, right? We fed the growth of our character and minds to live in the world we found ourselves.
Only now we're left with a mother-of-a-mental-ache and we don't know where it came from.
It's like trying to hang onto that monster cake from your 5th birthday party. Yummy crowd-pleaser with a sugar-buzz that had everyone bouncing off the school walls for a week but then not letting yourself go to the bathroom before you go to bed. You don't want to ever forget how fabulous you felt as it went in, so you try to shove it back in when it all tries to come out the other end. What's worse, you're now SOOO constipated hanging on to something whose time has clearly passed, you will sabotage the birthday-cake-fun you will have at birthday 6.
Gross, I'll grant you, but it makes the point.
It's simply toxic!
Courage starts at the willingness to let what has passed--good, bad, or otherwise--do just that. Pass.
But does that mean that it's all over? A time that has come and gone, forever?
Are you going to stomp on your 21st birthday cake just because it's not the same My Little Pony cake from that kindergarten blow-out? Of course not.
Now ask yourself how much you've been doing precisely that in your life.
In her TedTalk, The Power of Vulnerability, Dr. Brown has the courage to share with us her "breakdown" moment when she describes losing that war but winning her life. Wow! What a career she has developed.
She let go of the "cake" and got a whole new party.
Guess what?
We're all invited!
What kind of "birthday cake" have you been hanging onto that's keeping you from enjoying your greatness? Post your comments below and check out Dr. Brown's amazing book Daring Greatly for insights in helping you find your Agelessness.
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