Brené Brown is one of my favorite writers and speakers. If you haven’t seen her most watched Ted Talk, you really should stop reading this and watch it. Here, I’ll give it to you:

Self-esteem has always been this ethereal myth I find myself desiring and chasing after, as if it is something I can conjure up or create within myself. I seek it when I feel insecure about my writing or after an awkward social interaction. Both of which occur more frequently than not.

But for Brown, that sense of self does not come from forcing ourselves to think differently about ourselves, but by living wholehearted lives. Wholehearted living is “engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.” (Rising Strong p. xix)

I want to live like that.

On Monday morning, I got in the car to drive myself and my son to MOPS, but I had scrambled all morning to get my firstborn to the bus on time and needed to stop by the grocery store for the fruit we needed to bring for the group. As we were driving to the store, I realized how disheveled I felt. My hair was in a messy pony tail, I hardly had any make-up on, my allergies made my face feel swollen. I felt I looked as messy on the outside as I felt on the inside. For a moment shame crept in and said, you should really do something about that.

But then another voice said, “No, you need to show up in this group of moms who are feeling the same way and you need to speak how you feel. Because they feel that way too. And then maybe you can all find a sense of connection and worthiness in your lives, going on in your work and love without shame.”

[Tweet ““Maybe you just need to show up as you are and not how you think you should be.””]

So I did. And you know what? I don’t think anyone batted an eye that I was in a hoody and pony tail. I believed I was worth being present and that was enough.

Vulnerability

 

 

This post is being linked up on Kate Motaung’s Five Minute Friday post. Today’s writing prompt is “WHOLE.” To read other’s thoughts on “WHOLE,” click here. Every week, writers gather together to write for five minutes without major edits or second guesses. Just to write and be vulnerable in our writing – pursuing wholehearted living five minutes at a time.