Stepping into the arena and being seen...

I'm daring greatly. Today I took a leap. Of faith, And I'm kind of scared. I'm almost talking myself out of it. Of what I'm sure you're asking, lol.

Today I decided that I'm going to get my writing published, or epically fail in the attempt. No more holding back just because I'm scared. And if I do fail, well I'm going to keep on trying until I get the right thing that is noticed.

I wrote two different pieces, that I thought were really good, about bipolar disorder (of course), and I'm going to submit them to a couple of bigger news publishers next week, once I've had a couple of friends critique them for me.

I was feeling really good and optimistic about my odds, but now all my negative self talk has come in and is eating at me, so I'm really wondering if I'll even follow through and be courageous enough to follow through and be willing to be seen and step into the arena and submit these articles for consideration.

I can do this! I can do hard things. I do them all the time, right? And I'm not scared to fail. Failure is a part of life. I did my best, and if I fail, it means I learned on way of what the publisher isn't looking for. I just edit and try again.

I'm kind of getting pumped again now. I've just got to keep using my positive self talk, and I'll make it through this next week while I wait to see if they accept or reject my article! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Daring Greatly

I read Daring Greatly by Brené Brown this week for therapy, and omg, I think my life has been forever changed. I can't shut up talking about it.

She explained so much about the deepest things about my life that I've never been able to put into words, ever. And to know that I'm not alone, wow. I'm inspired. She talked about vulnerability and how it's intricately tied to shame, and explained how shame is simply the fear of not being worthy of real connection (although it's so much more than that), and how we have vulnerability armor we wear to protect us from being vulnerable at all costs.

She talked about how we need to develop shame resilience and that there are two types of people in the world, those who know that they are worthy of love and belonging, and those who feel that they aren't worthy of love and belonging. The only thing that separates these two groups is that the ones who have the deep sense of connection and feelings of love and belonging feel worthy of that love and belonging. That's all. 

She also said there were 12 categories where shame could rear its ugly head, like body image, motherhood/fatherhood, money/income, sex, addiction, aging, parenting, family and others. She also talked about the scarcity effect and how people in our culture felt like we we never enough, we were never thin enough, never rich enough, never good enough, and that the opposite of this was not abundance, but instead it was simply feeling good enough. I could not put this book down.

I was spellbound from start to finish. I was starving for the knowledge I got from her words. If you need a book to read, check this one out. You will not be disappointed, I promise!

I realize that I totally made a mess out of this review, writing book reviews is not my forte. If you'd like a clearer, more concise review check out amazon readers reviews here!