Brave.

About 2 summers ago, I was going through a really tough phase in my life. I would find myself waking up in the morning not wanting to get out of bed. 

Now, I'm not a morning person so I truly never want to get out of bed in the morning, but this feeling of not wanting to get out of bed was different from my normal "anti-morning" attitude. This feeling was heavy on me and I literally did not want to face the day. Some days I had the privilege of not having to, so I would allow myself in the morning to let the heaviness take over and pray it would pass. It always did within an hour or 2. I would finally find a way to get out of the bed and face the day.

The heaviness (that's the only way I know how to describe it) would sometimes hit me in the middle of the day. I remember one day in particular when I was babysitting that it hit me. The little girl I watch was 4 at the time and despite the joy and energy that rushes out of her constantly, I was struggling to keep my head above water for the day. 

I'll never forget one day in particular. I had taken her to the park or museum that day and she was able to entertain herself for the most part by making friends with other kids. I remember being grateful because I barely had the mental energy to engage her most of the day. We had come back to her house and she wanted to play with my hair. Again, I was thankful for this small act because it gave me a moment of calmness to help give me the strength I needed for the rest of the day.

We sat on her bed and she began to twist my hair, trying to braid it. We sat in silence for a while, I felt the heaviness on my chest. The little 4 year old, randomly, breaks the silence and says, "Be brave. Just like Sara Bareilles says. Say what you want to say and be brave."

She then continued to play with my hair and quickly jumped into the next thing she wanted to do.

It's funny how God can use the innocence of a child's favorite song to tell you exactly what you need to hear.

Be brave.

That little pep talk actually got me through the day. It got me through some dark days, the thought that bravery was needed to overcome the emotional hurdles I was having to face. Bravery was needed to face truths I had buried deep inside of me and to accept them as my life boat, not my demise.

I started reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear". I wasn't 10 pages in before she resurfaced the word 'brave' for me. She speaks of a poet by the name of Jack Gilbert and she writes an excerpt of what his students had to say he taught them.

"...he asked his students to be brave. Without bravery, he instructed, they would never be able to realize the vaulting scope of their own capacities. Without bravery, they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, their lives would remain small- far smaller than they probably wanted their lives to be."

It took God and bravery to get me through that summer. I'll never forget the feeling of myself coming back to the surface. I'll never forget the vibrations of the laughs that helped the feelings come back to life. What I felt was only been a small taste of depression but it was enough for me to never want to feel it again, and to empathize more with people who struggle with it.

To be brave is a characteristic we forget to encourage people to be. It often goes under looked and neglected, yet it's the very thing we need to be ourselves. You truly can't live in the skin you're meant to live in without it. You can't live the life you have always longed for without stepping onto the edge of bravery and leaping into the unknown. It takes bravery to change. It takes bravery to walk away. It takes bravery to risk everything to live the life you have always imagined.

I'm already pumped about this book. Creativity lives within me but it's the one thing I'm the most insecure about. 

It takes a mountain of bravery to write these blogs sometimes. It takes a lot of encouragement from multiple people for me to step outside the box as my practice as a counselor. My fear with being creative can paralyze me at times, but it's apart of who I am and it would be a shame to neglect any part of myself.

Bravery resurfaced tonight. It came back, reminding me that I need to to move forward, I need it in order to grow as a person.

So I leave you with the same quote that Jack Gilbert left for one of his students, " Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES."