Likes on Facebook

I was watching Dr. Brene Brown on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday today which in and of itself was like an academic and spiritual explosion, but something in particular stuck out. Brene mentioned how we measure our self worth on menial things such as twitter followers, likes on facebook and that sort of thing. Because we're always looking for validation in a society of uncertainty--and uncertainty is the ultimate enemy. It is not okay to not know. And so we need someone, anyone, to tell us we're funny (enough), pretty (enough), influential (enough). Enough enough. In a culture of scarcity, we just want to feel full and we'll take whatever we can get to fill us...

I thought about what's 'enough' for me. And I drew a sketch. Ego me salivated. If I just got there then...and the mind wanders to love in Paris, kisses in rain, cherry wood offices in the perfect brick home, and my cute little puggle named Charlotte. And then the other part of me says no. Because those things are not off limits to me right now and the only reason they feel that way is because I've set them up to be that way.

I believe there is a point where you look at the things that happened in your past and you draw the lines connecting the past to your present. Then, you realize that those things, while they happened, they are no longer happening and while your past may have gotten you to a place but your present choices have kept you there. I've arrived in this place.

I wholly admit that I am not very good at gratitude for who I am. What I do for others? Yes. But simply grateful for my own talents, attributes, skills? No. Further, I have worked tremendously hard to maintain a level of distance between myself and others. I do not lean fully into joy. I do not express the depths of pain I feel. I understood the man Brene mentioned who rode the middle...never expecting good and never enjoying it when it came. This alleged "safety", this neutrality...it is living outside the arena.

What I have decided is that I want to be in the arena. Daring greatly. It means being open to the risk of both joy and failure. It means answering to god and self. It means being clear in my values and my faith. It means showing gratitude at what is.

The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~Anaïs Nin

There was another Super Soul Sunday I saw where the metaphor of emotional anorexia was mentioned. Living off crumbs and expecting to feel satiated by it. Settling for scraps in relationships or careers because we need, so desperately, to just be full. Or rather to feel full. And some people die chasing the high that was. I don't want to die chasing what will inevitably always remain just out of arms reach. I want to live, hands to the heavens full of grace at what I have. I am full. And its time I started living that way.