The Arena

Last winter I discovered Brene Brown while watching an episode of Oprah's "Life Class".   I was stunned at what I heard her talk about and I knew even then that I was hearing truly life changing stuff.  Particularly with the burden I've been struggling with all of these years of the unfulfilled custom orders.  She spoke of concepts like perfectionism being armor against vulnerability.  (if we're "perfect", no one can be upset with us... )  YES!  That's me!  I've been crippled for so long thinking I can't "fix" any of this until things are perfect.

Afterwards, I had gone and watched her TED talk on vulnerability.

One of the things she talked about in Life Class was the story of the inspiration behind the title of one of her books, "Daring Greatly".  It is part of a quote from a speech Theodore Roosevelt did, which is known as "The Man In The Arena."

This brings me to another fairly recent motivational discovery of mine: Zen Pencils. 

You really should check out his work 

Here, I'll help you get started.  The artist, Gavin Aung Than, does brilliant comics that illustrate famous quotes or quotes from famous people.  He illustrated part of "The Man In The Arena" here.

That is the part of the speech that Brene Brown referenced for her book, "Daring Greatly".

Later, after listing to her talks, I discovered that Gavin of Zen Pencils illustrated one of her quotes and he dubbed it: "The Woman In The Arena".

I cannot express how much Brene's words, paired with Gavin's illustrations, resonate with me.  I have been battling the fear and shame gremlins for so long that I'm not even sure anymore what life is like without them.

But tomorrow...

Tomorrow, I go into the arena.