Good Read | Rising Strong

Rising Strong, by Brene Brown

My parents love to tease me with a story from my days as a five-year-old. We were at a family reunion, which I'd been anticipating for weeks because I'd been invited to perform one of the dance routines I'd learned at Debbie's Dance Studio, where my mom had recently registered me for jazz and tap classes. Now, sitting at one of the many large round dinner tables in the family reunion banquet hall, I was all excitement and anticipation. I couldn't wait to perform.

Towards the end of the meal, my mom escorted me to the bathroom, where my tap shoes and leotard awaited. I quickly threw my costume on and marched purposefully back into the banquet hall, where a multitude of mostly unknown but familiar family faces looked toward me. After a warm introduction from my Aunt, I began my performance. There was no music playing, so I just sang the song myself, as my feet tapped out the the moves I'd practiced with Debbie.

Let me tell you, I worked it. I schmoozed my way around the room, my young voice ringing out like a cracking bell, my skinny legs working their newly learned magic. When I'd finished my routine, I stood and faced the crowd directly, and beamed as their thunderous applause warmed my cheeks and heart. My mom got up from her seat and began making her way toward me, most likely to usher me back to the bathroom to change back into my party dress, but I decided I wasn't ready for that. I gave my mom the hand, letting her know she needed to back it up, looked back to the audience, who was clearly obsessed with me, and said, "But wait! I have another one, too!" I promptly began a second, less practiced routine, singing and dancing and all. My mom, realizing her daughter was being swept away in the glory of the moment, went back to her seat to wait it out, and the crowd quieted down, surely in gratitude for the unasked for encore.

This story has become a punchline in the Alcorn Family History Book. Interestingly enough, it's staying power has had little to do with the finesse of my performance. Rather, in the years following my infamous gig, I've learned that, perhaps, my family was not so impressed with my moves and tunes--although those were most likely fantastic!-- as they were by my unabashed self-promotion and brassiness. I was all in. I was proud, joyous, fearless, and entirely unselfconscious. I was doing whatever in the hell I wanted to do, and I was having a blast.

Not long after that sweet moment of wholly self-assured joy, I began what has turned out to be a life-long battle with perfectionism. Starting at around the age of seven, and continuing into my adolescence and adulthood, I became extremely self-conscious, overwhelmed by self-doubt, and more than anything, terrified of failure.

I've spent the majority of my life feeling torn between two very strong-willed aspects of myself. On one side, I have my inner child-star, who still wants desperately to express herself, and to show 'em what she's got. On the other side, perfectionism whispers it's cruel "what-ifs": What if I mess up? What if I forget the words? What if I trip over my own feet and everyone laughs? What if they don't like it? What if they don't like me?

I've read a lot of self-help books about perfectionism, fear, living bravely, etc. Some have been forgettable, some truly insightful. Most have been entirely focused on how to begin--how to take your first steps toward an endeavor that terrifies you. 

Ok, got it.

But what about all the "what ifs"? Because a "what if" doesn't turn into a "what's happening" until you're in it. So you've beaten the fear that kept you from trying, and now you're trying, and what happens? What if you try and fail? What if my five-year-old self had received a wave of "boos"--or worse yet, total silence--after her first performance? I bet she wouldn't have been so quick to offer up that encore.

Enter Brene Brown's latest, Rising Strong. There is a lot that I loved about this book, but perhaps the biggest golden nugget for me was Brene's emphasis on what she calls "the messy middle," meaning, the part of our story where we've fallen, and are trying to figure out how to get back up. 

"We've all fallen," she writes, "and we have the skinned knees and bruised hearts to prove it. But scars are easier to talk about than they are to show, with all the remembered feelings laid bare. And rarely do we see wounds that are in the process of healing [...] We much prefer stories about falling and rising to be inspirational and sanitized."

What Brene is calling us to do, is to get more comfortable with the uncomfortable parts, and to let things be messy for as long as it takes us to figure things out, dust ourselves off, and try again.

For better or worse, certain aspects of my five-year-old-self's family reunion performance will never be reenacted by me. I mean, shooing my mom away while I subjected a room of people to a poorly practiced rendition of "I've Had the Time of My Life" during a self-imposed "encore" would be weird.

But.

• May I worry less about what everyone else might think or want or expect. 
• May I muster more willingness to dive into the water, or jump onto the stage, or reach out over a great height, with less concern about the outcome, and more trust that whatever happens, good or bad, I'll handle it.
• May I make space for more moments of total presence, inhibition, courage, joy, and yes, brassiness.