Reflections on Rising Strong by Brené Brown, Part 2

We’re back! There were so many thoughts that stayed with me after reading Rising Strong by Brené Brown that I couldn’t resist continuing this wavelength into Part 2 of 2. Just like last time, I’ll surface some of my favorite quotes and my personal reactions to them. Here goes:

On surrender: “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty.”

We are not often taught the value of surrender or given adequate mindset training when it comes to being with the unknown. Our nervous systems are wired to distrust what is unfamiliar and to run our go-to survival strategies: fight, flight, freeze, please & appease or any combination thereof. Rather than press the eject button on what scares us, instinctively start yelling, or pretend everything’s cool, we can choose curiosity to meet what’s underneath our initial reactions or impulses.

On taking responsibility for our stories: “The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story but to defy the ending.”

What’s not common knowledge is that the challenging emotions we avoid are finding a way to stay with us despite our conscious intentions. They can show up as chronic pain patterns, like a (seemingly inexplicable!) nerve issue that lights up sometimes or as a form of bracing that becomes so familiar, it’s imperceptible (like the anxiety that prevents us from taking a deep breath most of the time). They can also show up like a warped relationship to anger that leaks out as outrage sometimes, or an unwanted sense of helplessness that has us staring at a wall in a timeless daze. Recognizing that it could be possible to write a new ending, to wish for that and to meet the obstacles in the way head-on (i.e. a limiting belief, a past memory that still feels charged, or an anticipated tough conversation with a loved one)—that’s the stuff the best stories are made of. It’s a “no thanks” to what’s not working, and a “yes” to the mystery door.

On how creativity reimagines healing: “Poet and writer William Plomer wrote, ‘Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.’ Connecting the dots of our lives, especially the ones we’d rather erase or skip over, requires equal parts self-love and curiosity: How do all of these experiences come together to make up who I am?”

If there’s one piece of wisdom I wish I’d absorbed *years earlier*, it’s that the challenges we face are essential parts of our individual stories, and our journey in this lifetime. As someone who once identified as a perfectionist, it felt to me for a time that these “blips” in the Reality We Planned™ “should never have happened.” It’s not like these moments create the blooper reel of life, or the scenes that get cut from the film for not making sense in the coherent storyline. I never heard the term “new normal” until after I’d survived a Near Death Experience, and while it came with a whole lot of grief, it also made a whole lot of sense. Sometimes we get handed surprise scenes in life we never asked for, and it takes some behind-the-scenes conversations between the writing team, the director, the producer and the actors to navigate what happens next. And all of those roles are played by you, so it can feel like a lot of responsibility.

<Cue self-love and curiosity to create the conditions needed to architect a new path forward.>

On becoming whole: “If you’re worried that giving permission to experience and engage with emotion will turn you into something you’re not or someone you don’t want to become—it won’t. It will, however, give you the opportunity to be your most authentic self. We are wired to be emotional beings. When that part of us is shut down, we’re not whole.”

The desire to cling to the familiar (what if I change? what if I become unrecognizable?) can be a strong one sometimes. Our emotions exist for a reason, and while our cultural programming can often suggest that challenging emotions are an inconvenience, they each have their inherent wisdom for us when we allow ourselves to experience them. Becoming more authentic is a practice, and it involves recognizing your emotional experience, finding healthy ways to process emotions, and expressing what’s needed to the people in your life from a place of compassion and respect. This practice is what supports us in becoming whole.