Courage

Courage

When you look up in the dictionary the words courage and bravery, the definitions are similar.  Yet the meanings are not the same. Some say bravery is completing an action that is potentially dangerous or life-threatening without much forethought while courage is knowing full well the potential consequences. 

Recently, I became aware of a wonderful researcher, writer and speaker, Brené Brown, a professor at the University of Houston, who has spent the last 12 years figuring out what keeps us from living—despite our best efforts—the kind of wholehearted, fully involved existences that we're trying to lead.  She specifically studies vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.  About courage, Brené Brown shared:

“Courage, the original definition of courage when it first came into the English language – it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart – and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart…

“This is what I have found:  to let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee — and that’s really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that’s excruciatingly difficult — to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering, ‘Can I love you this much?  Can I believe in this this passionately?  Can I be this fierce about this?’ just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, ‘I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive’” (Brené Brown, speaking about the power of vulnerability at TED).

Brown speaks about being alive, to be fully in the game.  I am reading her most recent book, Daring Greatly, in which she describes her research findings and the importance of vulnerability in order to be in the game of life.  Unlike conventional wisdom, where vulnerability is seen as weakness, the research finds that vulnerability actually requires courage.  To be vulnerable is to be open to uncertainty; to not know or be able to control an outcome, but to engage and allow ourselves to experience pain and disappointment in order to be able to experience love, connection and success.  They cannot exist without each other.  How can you know the love of another person if one person is not willing to say “I love you” first, not knowing what the response will be? That is to be vulnerable. This is to have courage!

Her research, her books and the two TED Talks I viewed are filled with great wisdom and guidance for parents, teachers, leaders, and anyone who wants to be and feel alive – pain, glory, love and all.

Brené Brown provides us with an alternate way to approach and live life, to see our blessings amidst the uncertainties in life and to create an alternative construct to the pervasive culture of fear and scarcity and the negative behaviors they promote.   I find her work affirming of Jewish values and the Jewish view of life and living.

Her book Daring Greatly spent several weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list this past fall, and I would encourage you to read it.  I will end with the inspiration that led Brené Brown to the title of her book:

“It is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.

“The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”  (Teddy Roosevelt, from a speech in 1910)