My favorite author/teacher, Brene Brown, taught me about courage, vulnerability, shame, and resilience, all prerequisites for much needed mending and healing. Most vital is “being all in” with whatever avenue I choose. To fail while placing myself in the arena is a life better lived than having not taken action or attempting triumph at all. The quote (below) by Theodore Roosevelt has inspired me to face fears, walk into the fighting ring I previously ignored, and dared greatly in places of adversity. Leaning into fear has proved emotionally satisfying, strengthened my risk-taking, atrophied muscles, and placated my past into dormancy.
Yet the past, believed healed, forgiven, and laid to rest relinquishes from the ashes like rekindling firewood with determination and persistency. Memes engrained reveal my weaknesses and are triggered, reminding me of the brokenness that shadowed decades of fear, destructive downfalls, and distress. I anchored myself to those equated to my established self-worth, and reached the bottomless pit of despair by age twenty-nine. With a miracle of inspiration, understanding, and recovery, I captured my life, turning the corner at a crossroads, venturing into a new dawning day with a life worth living.
Healing has zigzagged, yet found smooth ground by the new decade’s end. Two scores of life rattled the past into a sacred burial, rediscovering the meaning of unconditional love, self-care, and acceptance of life into an arena of worthiness, self-acceptance, and strength. Today I live with a badge of courage, honor, and determination, overcoming the obstacles, a resilient existence. The struggles to overcome my past enable me to appreciate the distance from then to now.
My avenue of change, growth, and healing are fluent, and flow unevenly against a tide like a rubber band that wants to resume back to equilibrium after stretched in one direction. The repeated recoiling when the trigger has been pressed continues to impede my progress, like two steps forward and one step back. Yet onward I trudge through disarray, disorganized trenches to discover I am indestructible, resilient, and strong beyond measure.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
I am Daring Greatly!
During this avenue of health and well being, I refuse to shortcut the process. I choose to fail while daring greatly, or triumph with high achievement. To know victory or defeat, pertinent for a worthy existence, is to live open heartedly. In the arena, I shall thrive, survive, and succeed for having entered, fought, and battled with all that I am. It is my destiny to live my best life, full of ambition, risk, and daring greatly, as not to regret attempting what I deemed impossible. Without the limits, anything is possible. Without the limits, healing is accessible. Without the limits, I am who I was meant to be.