I adore Brené Brown's "Ordinary Courage" blog. The title alone provides amazing food for thought about our lives and the fact that each of us lives each day with courage that we consider to be ordinary. With time and experience we often learn that the courage that is ordinary to each of us is, in fact, not at all ordinary when measured by those around us. We each have our demons, our battles, our scars that make us what we are. And, as stated in the quote on my page that I acquired from Brené...."we learn courage by couraging."
Brené has also done some pretty amazing work on shame, imperfection, and authenticity, and as an outgrowth of that in her series on "imperfect parenting" she has identified 10 guideposts for the parenting journey. Now, we all know that I'm a cat mom and have no real aspirations to be a human mom. But I did stop and read Brené's guideposts- and I had a light bulb moment. The light bulb? Well, her guideposts were designed for engaged parenting but they extrapolate beautifully to all aspects of our lives and relationships. For those who haven't seen them before, here they are:
Practice loving-kindness
Embrace imperfection
Understand shame and practice resilience
Make space for rest, creativity and gratitude
Hold spirit sacred
Make mistakes, make amends
Learn hope
Practice forgiveness and self-compassion
Lean into discomfort and pain
Practice courage by setting limits and respecting boundaries
I've decided that for the next 10 weeks I will work on these, one at a time. There's a lot of meat there, and while I don't intend this to be a "checklist" of acquiring these attributes, I do hope to use it as an opportunity to be mindful of each of them. Without bringing them forward to consciousness, it's hard to use them as guiding principles for life, love, and whatever else is out there.
And yes, I'll report back and let you know what I'm thinking.
The happiness/ gratitude list today will be brief. I'm sitting here listening to the new Emmylou Harris CD, and that's enough. If that beauty isn't something to be happy about and have gratitude for, I'll toss out the anticipation of seeing her live with Daddy in July for his birthday. This is amazing, soul-healing stuff.
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Now playing: Emmylou Harris - Hold On
via FoxyTunes