My Thoughts on "Daring Greatly"

Lately, I've been looking for ways to be more instrospective in understanding what's going on with my emotions, honest in communicating these things to my nearest and dearest, and courageous in finding ways to live out my ideas and desires.  Or, to put it in popular culture speak, i want to be more authentic.  Or, to put it in Brene Brown speak, more vulnerable and whole hearted.

Why do I want this?  Two things.  First, I think honesty leads to deeper and better relationships (in friendship, family, marriage - any important relationship), and who doesn't want that?  Second, I'm (possibly) at the cusp of a life change, as my kids rapidly approach school age, where I need to think about what I'm going to do with all the new hours of time - back to work, volunteering, working on other projects -- and I would like to be thinking about that from a place of honesty and whole heartedness.

This amazing quote is the inspiration for the title of the book.

One of the things I've done to learn more about how to achieve these goals is to read Brene Brown's wildly popular book, "Dare Greatly".  I usually steer clear of self-help books (for reasons explained below), but every once in awhile a book comes along that is so widely embraced by culture that you want to read it just to see what the big deal is.  Plus, it addresses all the stuff I just wrote about in the first two paragraphs.

I agree with the vast majority of "Daring Greatly".  I think Brene Brown is absolutely right that the big things holding us back from showing our true selves are shame and fear; that if we want to learn to be vulnerable and honest, and to produce things (like art, writing, a new business venture) that people might attack, we need to place our self worth somewhere other than what people think of us.  I think she's right that you need to have gratitude to experience joy.  I think she's right about a whole host of things, and this is why so many people love her book.

But for me, there's one big piece missing in the book.  Brene Brown's suggestion for where to get your self worth from is to believe that "I am enough."  This ties to my problem with self-help books in general:  they nail a problem, but then give a sort of fuzzy solution.  For example, this idea that "i am enough".  Brene Brown makes an excellent, compelling argument that so much in our culture makes us feel like we're not enough, that feeling like we're not enough steals our happiness, and that if we could just believe that we are enough without attaching our self worth to our abilities / accomplishments / other people's views of us, then it would allow us to dare greatly and live whole-heartedly.  The problem is, why should I believe that I'm enough?

There are a number of different reasons you could believe that you're enough, some philosophically stronger than others, but the Christian faith addresses these same things and gives reasons outside of yourself that offer this same freedom that Brene Brown is saying is the key to joy.  The difference is, in Christianity, you look to Jesus for your self worth rather than yourself.  If we believe that we are fully, forever forgiven and justified for every bad thing we have done and every bad part of our selves, and that we've been adopted and embraced into God's family -- that offers exactly the sort of freedom and joy and chance at vulnerable and whole hearted living that Brene Brown talks about.  One one hand, it's similar to the "Dare Greatly" idea, because it's all about getting rid of our shame and living a life not tied to our accomplishments and others' opinions.  But on the other hand, it's totally different, because our worth rests completely outside of ourself.  This is good news!

I imagine that some people who read this might disagree with me, as it seems like I'm one of the very very few people who have read the book and didn't love every single thing about it.  So in the spirit of both Daring Greatly and Christian freedom, please feel free to give me your opinion about the book, especially about the "I am enough" stuff.

{Post script:  Even though I just wrote a blog post about how i'm trying to increase "authentic living", this change is aimed at real life relationships, not my Internet persona - so this blog is going to stay the same.  One of the dilemmas of keeping a blog is balancing transparency with the privacy / protection of those you love.  It can be a real gift when people open up and share the messy, difficult parts of their lives; but it's hard (for me) to figure out how to do that in a way that is respectful and loving towards those who are walking through those experiences with you.  So I try not to talk in detail about my bad days on the Internet.  I am going to stick with this practice, but let me just say, in a very general way:  My life is not perfect.  I fail at being the ideal parent and spouse every day,  my house is never up to Pinterest standards in any way, my kids misbehave, and we have plenty of moments around here of frustration and boredom and messiness in every sense of the word.  I take it for granted that it's commonly understood that *everyone* has bad days, and also that (most) everyone tends to present their highlight reel on the Internet rather than laying out the details of their bad days.  But please know that bad days happen to me, and to everyone else in the history of the world.}