Shame, regret, failure, and vulnerability are words that can trigger visceral reactions and bring to the surface long suppressed emotions. However, if we are to move forward in life, we must come to terms with these issues. In her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brene Brown provides a masterful roadmap on how to recover from life’s setbacks.
In Rising Strong, Brown draws from her experience as a social worker, academic researcher, wife, mother, and stories from everyday people all the way to Fortune 500 companies to weave a tapestry that reflects the simultaneous beauty and mess that is life. Rising Strong is more than a conventional self-help book, as Brown encourages her readers to dig deep and “rumble” with the issues at hand and to live through the process on a daily basis.
(If you are unfamiliar with Brene’ Brown, I would encourage you to pull up her TEDx Talks on YouTube).
All of us fall and fail in life, but Brown states the importance of vulnerability, which she defines as, “The willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome -is the only path to more love, belonging, and joy.”1 Even during the times we fall flat on our faces, the rising strong process reveals to us who we are and allows us to draw upon our inner strength.
While Brown discusses embracing the failure, she warns against downplaying the emotional effects of it: “To strip failure of its real emotional consequences is to scrub the concepts of grit and resilience of the very qualities that make them both so important- toughness, doggedness, and perseverance.”2
Early on in the book, Brown outlines the Rising Strong process, which she uses throughout the process. “The goal of the process is to rise from our falls, overcome our mistakes, and face hurt in a way that brings more wisdom and wholeheartedness into our lives.”3 The other elements of the Rising Strong process includes what Brown calls “The Reckoning,” “The Rumble,” and “The Revolution,” which involve recognizing how emotions and feelings influence our behavior, owning our stories, and writing a new ending, respectively.
If you are serious about making changes in your life and you are willing to do the dirty work, I highly recommend Rising Strong. Brown lays down the gauntlet for a life changing challenge, as I saw it in light of my own recent life events concerning my health, divorce, and starting over.
1 Brene Brown, Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. New York: Random House (2015): xvii.
2 Ibid, xxv.
3 Ibid, 37.
Triumphant In Christ 