A couple of months ago, I watched Kelly Corrigan’s TEDtalk on bravery.  She is one of my favorite authors, speakers and podcasters because she focuses on interpersonal relationships, which I love to hear about, talk about and engage in as much as possible.  You can find her discussing topics about parenting, love, our mental health, losing her dad, surviving cancer and each Sunday she shares a submission from a listener which celebrates someone’s big, beautiful life.

While she often tackles difficult topics, she is always looking for the upside to every story, statistic or scientific finding.  This is why I adore her work so much.  I love when someone actively looks for the good even when there might not appear to be any on the surface.

I think this is why her TEDtalk on bravery resonated with me in the moment and has stuck with me all summer.  While her talk was a mere 12 minutes long, it packed a punch.  In these 12 minutes she discusses what she thinks it means to be brave in the big and small moments of life. Being brave in either circumstance is about showing up and being present and if relevant asking the following questions:  What is happening?  What else? Go on…  She equates the ability to sit with someone and listen, to love.

                  “Listening is so close to love that people can’t tell the difference.” Kelly Corrigan

Don’t you want to be that kind of love for someone else?  Don’t you want to be brave in the moment? We all have a tendency to want to fix, brainstorm and solve rather than just listen to someone express their feelings.  We all have friends who are really good at this and others who are not.  I am just as guilty as the next person for wanting to just jump in and try and solve it because it’s HARD to be still and not try to help when someone we love is hurting.

Our assignment and our path to bravery is to stay quiet, listen and only speak to ask them to tell us more, what else and to go on. That’s it.  

Corrigan references many poignant examples in her talk, but for the sake of understanding and for this blog, I am going to refer to these moments where we have to be brave as being lowercase brave and UPPERCASE BRAVE

So what does it mean to be the lowercase brave?  It means that in the face of something very important, frustrating, difficult, perhaps even heartbreaking or painful, we can sit with that person and listen. Some examples might be our adult child struggling to find a job, our middle schooler not being invited to something, our spouse not getting a promotion or maybe losing a job, a friend getting divorced or maybe a family member is having a difficult time with another family member. You get it.  These are things we will likely move on from in time, but in the moment they are extremely challenging. It’s uncomfortable when they confide in us, but that isn’t the issue.  We are not the focus and It’s not ours to solve. We don’t get to be the hero by figuring it all out. Our job is merely to listen.

UPPERCASE BRAVERY is being there in the midst of a crisis, a chronic illness, a significant loss, a death, a debilitating accident,  or someone’s final days.  Honestly, the list goes on and I am sure we can all fill in the blank. These are the moments when life comes crashing onto your doorstep and you are brave enough to be with the other person and you don’t even see there is a choice, but to stay.  These are the moments that take our breath away and we want to push rewind and make it all go away or pause and hold on, but we can’t.  Staying, being there, listening and holding someone’s hand might be the greatest gift of all.

If you watch Corrigan’s TEDtalk, and I highly recommend it, she gives heartbreaking examples of all kinds of bravery.  In the end and in typical Corrigan fashion she looks for the light in the midst of the darkness.  She asks the question, “what is the reward for being brave?”  Of course, nobody is thinking about a reward when they are IN IT with someone, but in our quiet times we may ask ourselves, “why?”

Corrigan state that the reward is,

“The full human experience with all of the emotions of terror, joy, pain, love, relief, elation, and the list goes on…”

We GET to live the full human experience and while nobody wants the despair and moments we aren’t sure we can continue, they go hand in hand with being part of a family, having a partner, having children, friends, neighbors and community.  But also…we get to love, have unspeakable joy, moments of peace, clarity and contentment.

 Would we trade all of that?  Ask anyone who has ever lost a loved one and they will always tell you the joy outweighed the pain and they would do it again for just one more day.  That is being brave.

Your full human experience is exactly that.  

Your story is not my story,  

Your neighbor’s story is not my story or your story.  

We all have a different human experience, but how lucky are we to be here?  

Thank you Kelly Corrigan for the reminder that in the end, it all adds up to this one beautiful, brave life.