Brave Is the New Beautiful for All Women
In the wake of #MeToo and revelations that continue to pour out from victims of sexual harassment, we are seeing an awakening of courage and bravery in women.
I began my own exploration of the faces of bravery in writing Brave is the New Beautiful: Finding the Courage to be the Real You.
I knew underneath the highlight reels and postures of perfection, everyone is fighting a battle we don't know about. I began digging, interviewing hundreds of women who openly unearthed their most vulnerable selves to help them stop hiding from guilt and shame. They are women offering their messy, broken and brave stories.
In every encounter and by listening to every narrative, I always found this to be true, when we take off our masks and encourage each other to say, "YES, that happened to me too!"
Yet, I am baffled by the wave that has begun to often follow these brave acts. This tide is not one of encouragement and "atta girls", but one of criticism and judgment. I see it sometimes in daily life, but mostly on social media or behind-the-back whispers.
As a grown woman, I begin to feel like I am transported back to the sticky tables and social status of a seventh grade lunch period. Only enough space at the table for the right crowd, the cool kids or simply the ones who agree with the theology of Queen Bee!
Life isn't a junior high lunch table, but in the world of women especially as women fight to be heard and understood, more specifically Christian women, it can often feel like it.
The responses can be so terribly hurtful even though at the core, aren't we ALL longing to be accepted?
How do we shift this? How do we respond when a woman bravely uses her voice even if we don't agree?
What I have learned from this journey of researching and in the exploration of bravery as well as doing my own share of criticizing are three things:
- Believe there is room for all of us.
When we act of out of a scarcity mindset we become jealous and afraid.
"The scarcity mindset is what's adopted by those who believe in limited opportunities, scarce resources, and a "me vs. the world" control-driven mentality. It's what keeps people from celebrating the success of others. Scarcity withholds recognition and waits for the other proverbial shoe to drop. It's a suppressing and limiting mindset."- Jon Cook
The criticism I witness of women attacking other women, I surmise it arises from a mindset of scarcity. Women can be most brutal to each other. So what if instead of the competition and the comparing, we can believe there is room for all of us? What if we view this world as a place of abundance. Where there is room for you, and there is room for me. Then we can move to point two.
2. Live from a posture of curiosity.
Instead of criticizing or interpreting another woman as mean or wrong, why not inquire with a healthy curiosity. Ask her, "Help me understand how this feels for you?" Inquiring doesn't mean you have to agree. It just means you are willing to allow her to be her and begin a dialogue. By not proving you are right and she is wrong, you can probe deeper with a non-judgmental curiosity. Step in her shoes, I speculate you will have a clearer understanding of her and why she is the way she is.
"Focus on Cooperation rather than competition. As long as you view the people in your life as competitors, you'll always focus on trying to "win." And you can't have healthy relationships with people when you're only thinking about how to beat them rather than build them up."- Amy Morin. 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do
3. Understand the whole picture.
Everyone is fighting a battle we don't know about. Once you believe there is room for all of us and begin to respond out of a posture of curiosity, you will be able to see this is accurate. Our Western culture constantly bombards us and berates us with messages of how we should be and how short we fall. The last thing we need to be doing is creating an environment that regresses this movement of women using their voices.
There is always more than you see. Along the sidelines of the headline news are inspiring tales of bravery hidden in the mundane details of women's everyday lives-women who make the decision to get up every morning and keep putting one foot in front of the other. They are doing what is good and right despite the crises, turmoil and dilemmas life tosses at them. These are women steadily making decisions to use their voice and to fall and get up again. They are choosing to take off their masks and live an authentic life.
Understanding the whole picture will hopefully provide you (and me) with more grace.
"Whenever you can try to be a little kinder then is necessary. If you do this, someday, somebody, somewhere, may recognize in you, the face of God."- R.J. Palacio. Wonder.
Maybe junior high lunch was our training ground but it doesn't have to be the arena we live in. Bravery is so frightening and if we want a society of courage, then we also need to create a culture of kindness, love and curiosity.
We may not agree, but lets at least provide a place where everyone can sit at the table. God is so big He can take all of our questions, hurts, angers and fears and as we lay them out He doesn't flinch or recoil. Go to Him first and then invite others to the table with you and practice these three postures so we all can live out a community of love, grace and belonging.
So today, won't you tell her she is brave? She needs you. We need each other.
"People don't get lost if there are enough people to hold their hands." - Jean Vanier
Lee Wolfe Blum is a speaker, mental health practitioner and author of Table in the Darkness: A Healing Journey Through an Eating Disorder and Brave is the New Beautiful: Finding the Courage to be the Real You. She lives in Edina, Minnesota with her husband and three teenage boys. www.leewolfeblum Twitter: @blumlee Instagram:lblum
