Brave; Not Fearless

For as long as I can remember I feel like I always wanted to be fearless. Every year I’d have this unwritten goal to be fearless and every single year I’d fail.

For, you see, ever since I was a little kid I have been a big ol’ fearful scared-y cat and so much of that has carried into adulthood. At 32 I will still run if a bee is near me. I get freaked out by things touching my feet in the ocean and I’m always aware that I’m in the shark’s house so much so that I would prefer never to get in the water if I don’t have to. I can’t enjoy hikes because I’m on high alert for snakes. I’m afraid of putting myself out there and failing. I still hate speaking in front of people, even though I’ve done it, because I think about the days when I was so painfully shy I couldn’t even speak up in class

I just don’t operate in a manner in which its easy for me to be without fear during any given day. To be fearless. I get in my head way too much whether it’s taking a walk through the woods or standing up for myself to get what I deserve.

And I always just feel so uncool.

I want to be that fearless girl who climbs the biggest baddest mountain, who swims in the ocean carefree and who might do something without calculating all the ways she could die. I want to do big, bold things with my life and not be scared. I want to demand that raise. I want to not back down.

YOU KNOW THAT GIRL. YOU’VE SEEN THAT GIRL. MAYBE YOU ARE THAT GIRL.

I’m not that girl.

Instead I scroll and admire them on Instagram thinking “GOD LOOK HOW FEARLESS THEY ARE! Why is that not me?? Why can’t I just remove this fearfulness off me and BE THAT GIRL. I want to be without all these fears that weight me down.”

For whatever the reason I can’t be fearless. At least in the way that I viewed it.

But then I was recently listening to a podcast (I cannot for the LIFE of me remember which one because I listen to so many and didn’t realize how much the episode would stick with me even months later) and it reframed how I wanted to think about this.

I wanted to be brave; not fearless.

THAT is the aspiration for me, I realized. I don’t ACTUALLY want to kick fear to the curb but I’d rather learn and grow from it and rise to the occasion and BE BRAVE.

I realized a couple things about bravery that I wanted to share:

Bravery isn’t all about that one huge showstopping act all the time

I realized, like the podcast guest was saying, that bravery isn’t just showing up for that one big thing that might be the climax of a movie or book but it’s all about every day bravery. One small act of bravery. She talked about how you have to work out your bravery muscle and that made SO much sense to me. She said you wouldn’t just go to the gym and expect to hang with the huge bodybuilders right away — you have to put in the work and get stronger with that bravery muscle. It’s an accumulation of all these little acts of bravery that get you ready to do something big and bold.

I get disappointed because I can’t always ~be fearless~ or do that big bad brave thing but I realize don’t give myself for all the every day bravery I practiced. The little acts of bravery that will help me get better at being brave.

I remember I did one brave thing and it’s how I met some of my closest friends. It was out of my comfort zone and I certainly wasn’t this fearless badass but I was brave and showed up and it paid off.

Bravery looks differently for everyone

That was one of the things I realized. The podcast guest talked about a friend who was brave in her lipstick choice when that’s a thing that some people wouldn’t even think about and I realized how much my view of bravery/being fearless wasn’t tailored to who I was.

I realized I spent so much looking at all these other people that I labeled as brave and fearless and realized there was probably things that I do, without thinking of it, that would be an act of bravery for them. I mean, maybe there are people who are just 10000% fearless in all that they do but I don’t know…I truly do think bravery looks different.

Having a hard conversation or wearing a crop top might be a brave thing for someone.  It might not always be the thing that you look at on Instagram that seems brave or fearless right off the bat but it might be an act of bravery all its own.

I also think about how, after having such a hard time postpartum, that when Riley was 6 weeks and I was feeling a bit better mentally/ I got the clear to go for walks (4th degree tearing recovery is no fun, y’all) that I strapped her in the baby carrier and leashed Finn up by myself and went for a walk around our apartment complex with the two of them.

I WAS SO SCARED. And I felt stupid for being scared/nervous about it and felt silly for how proud I was that I did it. But I see how brave I was in that moment. I wish I gave myself more credit for those moments. Especially because things had been so hard for me. I could have waited until Will got home. That would have been easier. But I wanted to do it by myself. I chose bravery over fear. It might seem like no big deal to someone else but for me, after all I had been through and all the ways postpartum depression made me feel I’d never be able to do any of this, it was an important moment of every day bravery. I needed that moment. I needed to be brave because it really helped me move forward and stop letting fear get in my way as a mom (and a human).

Fear isn’t a terrible thing

I don’t remember how she put it but what I took from it is that fear guides and steers you. Now, while sometimes I think that I let fear hold me back to a fault, I realized fear itself isn’t terrible. I had looked down at myself for having fears and not being fearless my whole life. It’s okay for me to be scared, to have fears. Having fears might be an opportunity to me work on bravery and to grow as a person. Fear lets me be brave if I so choose to.

I’m learning to own and recognize all the little fears and insecurities and scary things in my life — no matter how small or big. And then I look at those fears and see those as opportunities to flex that bravery muscle.

Now I’m not saying being fearless is a bad thing — maybe that is your aspiration and that is awesome — but I realized I was aspiring to be something that wasn’t right for me and that bravery is the thing I want to practice in my life.

I will never be a fearless person. I will never FEEL fearless. I will never be that girl who just leaps (and has a stunning Instagram picture to show it all silhouetted by the sun with blue water below welcoming her below).. I will probably always be that girl who is freaking out, overthinking it, talking herself out of it and then reluctantly leaps and screams the whole way down. I might even chicken out and take 5 times to actually do it. (I’m painting a very physical picture of this but I mean it very metaphorically — this is me just calling to advocate for myself or choosing to have that hard conversation as much as a physical leap).

But I will still have done it. Because….bravery.

I want to do things that make me feel brave. It doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t be scared or be without fear, because it seems its part of my DNA, but I can CHOOSE bravery in my life. I can sit here trying to mold myself into this fearless person that I will NEVER be or I could choose to appreciate all the little ways I can be brave.

The podcast guest talked about her bravery bucket list — a list of things that would make her feel brave — and I totally did that. I put some silly and some big things that would make me feel brave/be an act of bravery. It’s been so great to not be ashamed of my fears, even the ones I’d be embarrassed to admit, and to reframe how I look at those fears as an opportunity to be brave.

I mean, honestly, it’s life-changing to recognize any fear — big or small — and realize how badass you are because YOU CHOSE TO DO IT ANYWAYS.

So talk to me about bravery!! Tell me an act of bravery you did recently — no matter how small! I want to celebrate it with you. Maybe if we learn to celebrate these little acts we will see ourselves for how awesome we are!

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