My Season of Courage

Shame. Just typing the word makes me feel it. Feel it at the very core of my being. I carry it as if my life depended on it. It’s debilitating and terrifying and comfortable. It keeps me from fully participating in my life and stuck within a cozy nightmare.

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety twenty years ago and there can be a shame attached to that diagnosis. I hated telling people I have mental health issues because it made me feel weak, unworthy, and most importantly, alone. I was afraid that there was something fundamentally wrong with me and that people would look at me differently. Will they pity me? Will they understand me? Will they want to be my friend or boyfriend? I learned to hide it and to hide myself.

It was at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic where I reached one of my lowest of lows. I wrote a post several months ago, Thank You For Helping Me Reach My Rock Bottom, which was my awakening into my season of courage. I knew I didn’t want to continue living as I had been and that in order to live the life I wanted, I needed to find just an ounce of courage to do so. Aside from improving my health, both physical and mental, the thing that I wanted the most was to find my voice and the courage to share it.

Although this work is difficult and frightening and can be painfully slow, I realized that I needed to break myself down even further and accept that not all of the pieces will fit back together. That it’s okay to be broken and to not be a whole puzzle. That I can take my time discovering new pieces to add and either shrink others down or discard them completely in order to create a new masterpiece.

Thus began my inner journey; my solo trip to self-discovery. My emotional baggage is packed and ready to go.

My Adventure in Vulnerability

Dr. Brené Brown shared through her TEDxHouston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, that there are four critical aspects to living a fulfilled and relatively shame-free life: courage, compassion, connection, and vulnerability.

Through her decades of researching shame and vulnerability, she discovered that everything starts with connection and that shame is the fear of disconnection. The only thing depriving people of experiencing that strong sense of connection was the belief that they’re not worthy of love and belonging. As she describes in her talk, the people who feel connected, whom she dubbed “wholehearted,” have the courage to be imperfect and the compassion to be kind to themselves and then to others. Their connection with others was as a result of being authentic and that they fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful.

She goes on to say that vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness but it’s also the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, and love. One of the ways we deal with vulnerability is by numbing it but you can’t selectively numb the shame, fear, and disappointment without also numbing the joy, gratitude, and happiness.

I have an A+ in life for numbing the pain, which in turn numbs the joy because I don’t fully commit to being vulnerable. I viewed vulnerability as the cause of getting hurt, instead of looking at it as simply necessary to find the joy as the “wholehearted” do.

Where Do We Go From Here?

According to Brené Brown, there are four choices we can make:

1. Let ourselves be seen

2. Love with our whole hearts even when there is no guarantee

3. Practice gratitude and joy

4. Believe that we’re enough

All four are difficult for me. I learned not to share the most authentic parts of myself with others for fear of being judged as unworthy. I believed that it was better not to be seen but by permitting myself to slip into the shadows, I deprived myself of fully experiencing life. I kept myself in the lows so long that I forgot I could also achieve the highs.

To Trek Through My Season of Courage, I Had to Ask:

What if I just started believing in myself and what would that look like?

If I believe that I’m worthy and if I love myself wholeheartedly and if I can feel joy for finding the courage to share my voice, then I can want to be seen (and like it). By allowing myself to be seen and heard, my story, Yard Wars: The Rise of Obi-Wan Catnobi, won the Pet Cam Challenge.

Even before I was notified of my win, I felt such relief and gratitude that I showed up for myself that day. That even though every voice in my head was telling me I’m not good enough and every bone in my body wanted me to shut my computer off and walk away, I pressed “Enter now” anyway.

During my season of courage, I’m willing to be seen. I’m willing to fail. I’m willing to love myself and to be present. And I’m willing to express gratitude and joy in embracing my vulnerability.

As I embark on this voyage, it’s both scary and exciting. I know I’ll encounter the old decrepit lands of Fear and Shame but I’ll also discover the most wonderful new places called Courage, Acceptance, and Self-Love. I’ll climb mountains of Unworthiness but reaching the peak will bring endless views of Gratitude and Joy.

For everyone suffering from feelings of shame and unworthiness, I invite you to embark on your own solo trip of the mind and hit your version of “Enter now.”