Surviving The Wilderness
What I watched: The Most Eye Opening 10 Minutes Of Your Life by Brené Brown via Motivation Thrive. Posted March 1, 2022.
On Brené Brown’s website she describes herself as “a researcher, storyteller, and (currently enraged) Texan who’s spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.” She’s also a force of nature in the world of inspiring books and lectures. Her TED Talks, “The power of vulnerability” and “Listening to shame,” are legendary. Her books are widely read and respected.
Knowing me as he does, my friend Travis Creston Detwiler sent me the link to the video saying “There are so many nuggets here, I think you will enjoy.” He was correct. In 10 minutes the video provides through a compilation of various presentations and interviews a concise summary of some of Brown’s unique perspectives.
At one point Brown speaks to something all of us creatives struggle with constantly. Critics. External critics for sure, but those external critics also creep into our consciousness and become self-imposed internal critics.
I often give off an impression of unwavering confidence. At times this is true. At other times it’s anything but true. I suffer from the same imposter syndrome and self-doubt that plague us all. Am I good enough, smart enough, creative enough, unique enough, hardworking enough?
So, the critic’s feedback can land on me or anyone with a resounding thud that if left unchecked squelches the life out of anything worthwhile we do in life.
I always try to remember what drag queen Willam Belli said, “Showing up is like 90 percent of the battle, and just make sure your hair is really cute.” Since I’m bald, I’m ahead of the game not having to make sure my hair is cute. Showing up is what it’s about, for ourselves and for others. We must place ourselves actively in the arena to do battle.
It's not the critic who counts. It's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done it better. The credit belongs to the person who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred with blood and sweat and dust. Who at the best in the end knows the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, he fails daring greatly.
It is not about winning, it's not about losing, it's about showing up and being seen.
Brown continues with another dose of reality. Once you show up and plant your feet firmly in the arena, you must accept that it’s a battle, and a battle in which you’ll consistently get your ass kicked over and over because no accomplishment of note manifests without people and circumstances wanting to knock you down.
The second thing. This is who I want to be. I want to create, I want to make things that didn't exist before I touch them. I want to show up and be seen in my work and in my life. And if you're going to show up and be seen, there is only one guarantee. And that is, you will get your ass kicked. That is the guarantee. That's the only certainty you have. If you're going to go in the arena, and spend any time in there whatsoever, especially if you've committed to creating in your life, you will get your ass kicked. So, you have to decide at that moment. I think for all of us, if courage is a value that we hold, this is a consequence. You can't avoid it.
This wisdom flies in the face of much of the self-help advice that’s so popular today. With titles like “10 Easy Steps to ____” or “Create ____ in Just Weeks,” books, articles, and presentations dole out advice as if by following it all the roadblocks will magically move out of your way. They won’t. Get used to it.
Later in the video Brown talks about something I have mentioned as my own superpower, curiosity. I am always incessantly curious. If I have one quality to which I can attribute much of what success I’ve had, it’s my curiosity along with the ability to skillfully follow that curiosity to where it decides to take me. Whether it’s reading, discussing, questioning, taking courses, interviewing, or brainstorming, my generalist mind finds most of life fascinating and worthy of inquiry and sometimes study.
As someone approaching his 68th birthday, I echo Brown’s contention that curiosity is a superpower we can all leverage in our later years.
Curiosity is really the superpower for the second half of our lives because it keeps us learning, it keeps us asking questions, and it increases our self-awareness.
At one point in the video I was reminded of a conversation I had recently with my friend Patrick Davis, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at the new independent queer press, Unbound Edition Press (great books, highly recommended) that’s been making news lately in the queer press realm. He was mentioning the concept of moving beyond inclusion to belonging. Inclusion connotes an insider inviting outsiders into “their” world rather than the outsiders not being outsiders any longer and simply “belonging” in that world. I found that sentiment powerful.
Belonging is vital to a healthy sense of self. Being an outsider is fine if one wants to embrace a rebel or maverick perspective. That’s certainly been something I’ve done historically. But at the same time when it comes to the big important stuff in life, we should belong. The external world outside of our own experience should not get to dictate our level of participation in society. It’s only by truly belonging that we can at the same time stand alone in all our uniqueness and individual beauty.
The thing that I learned about belonging that I think is so powerful and that I cling to as a creative is that belonging is not something we negotiate with the external world, it's something we carry in our hearts. And as it turns out, the men and women who have the highest levels of true belonging not only find sacred being a part of something bigger but they have the courage to stand alone. And the reason why art and creativity are going to be so important to our healing and to whatever comes next in our world is every creative knows what it's like to stand alone. And so creatives have this incredible ability when they find the confidence to be able to find beauty and value in being part of a creative community but also the courage to stand alone. And so what I would say to you is understand, I wouldn't say this as a therapist, I would just say it as a fellow creative that's found my own pain and success, is be a part of a creative group and community but don't ever believe for a second that you are not going to have to stand on your own.
The next portion hit home for me. I was good academically as a kid and without much conscious thought was destined for a certain professional life when I entered college. I would graduate with an accounting degree, then go to law school, and eventually become a Certified Public Accountant and licensed attorney. My ticket to corporate security would be written and life would be good.
It didn’t work out that way. I’ll leave out the details, but I left college my third semester to pursue a career I had never considered prior. I did so with no regret then or now. But it was not the path my father had envisioned for me. It was not the path my guidance counselors mapped out. It was not the path the scores on my college entrance exams assumed I’d follow. Some of my friends thought my decision to leave was misguided.
If I had continued on the course set for me early on, I would have been miserable. Of that I’m sure. Others may have loved that life, but I’m convinced I would have existed in a professional life of ongoing malaise had it gone the way originally planned.
If I had a dollar for every interview I did with a late 20, early 30-year-old that got on the engineer, lawyer, doctor path, because that was the moving escalator for smart people, who was depressed, hated what they did, never even knew that you could be a shoe designer or casting director or a microphone builder. If I had a dollar for every one of those, like - set for life.
Then Brown gives us some wonderful advice on how to manage the critics in our lives. Give them a front row seat.
I used to think the best way to put your work out into the world is to make sure the critics are not in the arena, but you have no control over who's in the arena. And the best way I have found is to know that they're there, and to know exactly what they're going to say to you. The three seats that will always be taken when you walk into the arena, when you share your work with someone, the three seats that will always be taken are shame, scarcity, and comparison. Shame, completely universal human emotion, we all have it. It's the gremlin that whispers you're not enough. The other seat that's always taken is scarcity. What am I doing that's original? Everyone else is doing this. 150 people are doing it who are better trained than I'm trained, than I am. The third seat, always, comparison. How many of you ever struggle with comparison? The thing is, I don't care what people think, I don't worry about the critics in the arena, sends a huge red flag out for me. We're hardwired for connection. When we stop caring what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people think, we lose our capacity to be vulnerable. So, rather than locking these folks out from the arena, what I'm going to invite you to do is reserve seats for them.
Concluding the video, Brown leaves us with some great advice to handle the naysayers in our lives. We all have them. Family. Friends. Coworkers. Everyone will have some justification for telling you to not do something. I’ve been told this repeatedly throughout my life. Every time I’ve reinvented myself personally or professionally there were always sideliners advising me to rethink my decision. I undertook projects many felt were doomed for failure from the start, but they succeeded.
I will leave you with this. There will be time when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and will doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone somewhere will say 'Don't do it. You don't have what it takes to survive the wilderness.' This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, 'I am the wilderness.'
Brown’s advice will help us all survive the wilderness while we are the wilderness.
This video is one of those you might want to consider saving so you can watch it again every so often. It’s short enough and meaty enough to warrant repeated viewing. Share it with your friends. They’ll likely thank you. Its messages are universal.
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