“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” – Anne Frank
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” – Brené Brown
In the Chanukah spirit, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss my favorite author – and her inspirational book to help us explore the darkness in order to find the light.
Brene Brown, someone whose books I have written about for this publication, released Rising Strong: The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution this summer. Perhaps Brown’s greatest strength is her ability to be a researcher-storyteller. She interweaves real scientific data with entertaining anecdotes. Brown’s other books focus on shame and vulnerability, particularly how these issues affect women. Brown’s book The Gifts of Imperfection encouraged women to be themselves and to embrace their imperfections – essentially not to feel shame about the ways in which they were not perfect. Her next book, Daring Greatly, emboldened women to “be all in,” to not feel failure, to attempt what seems to be impossible.
Now, Rising Strong responds to all the women who “dared greatly” and failed. They wrote to Brown and asked, “I dared greatly… and now I’m down for the count. How do I get back up?” Brown writes, “I knew when I was writing The Gifts and Daring Greatly that I would ultimately write a book about falling down. I’ve collected that data all along, and what I’ve learned about surviving hurt has saved me again and again. It saved me and, in the process, it changed me.”
Explaining the connection between living a full life and failure, Brown articulates:
While vulnerability is the birthplace of many of the fulfilling experiences we long for – love, belonging, joy, creativity, and trust, to name a few – the process of regaining our emotional footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values forged. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness in our lives; it’s the process that teaches us the most about who we are.
What do you do with that failure? How do you learn from it and attempt the seemingly impossible again?
According to Brown, there are three steps in falling:
The Reckoning: The reckoning is when we recognize the failure. Brown explains that we all have “stories” that we tell. For instance, we have a fight with a colleague, and immediately we start telling a story to ourselves, “Oh, I knew Basya never liked me! She probably got upset when I told her that she had a stain on her blouse and now she is taking it out on me.” The story can snowball from there. We tell ourselves stories all the time in attempt to explain what is going on in our lives.
The Rumble: Brown says in order to grow from the hardship say, “This is the story that I made up about why that just happened.” When we acknowledge the story, we understand that it is a story and not the facts. Maybe, just maybe, our story is not one hundred percent accurate. The rumble is the messiest part of the process. The rumble is the time when we recognize that our story might not be true and we need to figure out what the reality is. We are in the midst of the darkness and do not see a way out of the tunnel. In the rumble, you need to get honest about the stories you are making up about your struggles. You need to challenge yourself to determine what is true, what is self-protection, and what must change for you to live a “wholehearted” life.