.
On a plane somewhere between Los Angeles, CA and Chicago, IL: A few weeks ago, before I
headed out west, I had a farewell coffee with a friend, who has served as a spiritual mentor of sorts over the last several years. Multiple times, she has given me small tokens of insight to ponder on, to which they became mile markers along my spiritual journey.
During the coffee, she left me with yet another nugget. “Listen to this TED talk,” she offered, on a silver, spiritual platter. “It talks about living a wholehearted life.” Listen, I did. Then again. Then I blogged and Facebook'd about it. And I played it for other people. It turns out listening to the Brené Brown TED talk on vulnerability would become a new slight obsession for me.
After taking this obsession to the next level – googling the hell out of her, of course – it turns out Brené had written a new book continuing this discussion on living wholeheartedly. Her book tour leading up to the release included a stop in LA. One of the best things about temporarily living in LA is that most important events make a stop there. Concerts, book tours and the occasional earthquake. They’ve got it all.
I met up with Jenn, my long lost friend whom I honestly couldn’t even remember how we had met, and went to hear Brené speak. Her stories were just as funny and relatable as in the TED talk and she used just the appropriate amount of swear words to make me believe she was for real.
We stood in line to get our books signed and I started to feel anxious. Damnit, it was happening again. Last time I stood in line to meet an author at a book signing, I made a quasi-ass of myself. I felt a twinge of empathy for the hundreds of nervous fans I had moved through meet & greet lines over the years. But I should be able to handle meeting a 40-something wife & mother of two who discussed – in a video seen by over five MILLION people – how she had a breakdown. Right?
When I finally reached the table, I out-ed myself immediately, in hopes it would save me from rambling on too much and eventually sticking proverbial foot in mouth. “I met Elizabeth Gilbert once and verbally vomited all over her,” I said quickly. “So before I do that again, all I want to say I think you’re great and I’m excited to read your book and follow your blog read-along.”
Brené smiled genuinely, thanked me, and said “I’m excited to see you on there! Tell me your name again?”
“Well, it’s Carolyn, but I’ll probably be under snellycat.”
A bigger smile.
“I’ll definitely look for you, snellycat!”
This is great for three reasons:
1) Once I put it out there, especially to someone else, I am now accountable. Granted I can change my mind at any time or decide to do something different if it’s not working. But the idea is that I have made a promise – out loud – and need to follow through. This will give me incentive to keep it up.
2) The blog read-along is an eight week event in which you read one chapter at a time and submit any questions you have to Brené via email. Once a week, she uploads a podcast where she answers the questions and comments on that week’s chapter. If I can read one chapter a week, listen to the corresponding podcast and blog about my personal experience with it, I will also be fulfilling my other goal of writing more. Oh, the sweet, sweet joys of multitasking.
3) She knows me as snellycat. And that is just awesome.
So, autographed copy of Daring Greatly in hand, I begin my eight-week journey of learning to live more wholeheartedly and how to “dare greatly.”
From the xii part of the book (which I’m still not 100% sure what xii means and why can’t one just say "intro to the intro"), she writes:
“We spend our lives waiting until we’re
perfect or bulletproof
before we walk into the arena.
Perfect and bulletproof are seductive,
but they don’t exist in the human existence.
We must walk into the arena,
whatever it may be
– a new relationship, our creative process...
or a difficult family conversation –
with courage and willingness to engage.
We must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen.
This is vulnerability.
This is daring greatly.”
I think I just hit another mile marker.
