Choosing to Ride the Roller Coaster of Life

I was lucky to see the author Brene Brown speak recently on Courage and Vulnerability.  I highly recommend you check out her TED talks.  I absolutely loved how she was positive and playful, artfully weaving self deprecating humor into her message.  She shared that courage means being vulnerable and being vulnerable requires one to risk, face uncertainty, and be emotionally exposed.  Wow!  That sounds scary, huh?  Who would want that, right?  Well...

...this got me thinking about the possible relationship between what Brene Brown shared and Sail the Seven C's.  A few months ago, a friend of ours, very familiar with Brene Brown's work, pointed to such a connection in the stories we shared during one of our Seven C's workshops together.  Don't our egos try hard to keep us away from being vulnerable with others in order to avoid the inevitable pain that comes with human connections?  Don't we fear what others might think of, or heaven forbid say to us, forgetting that our infinite value, every one of us, doesn't depend one bit on others' perceptions of us?  Our ego's fear and desire ultimately manifest as Competing, Comparing, Chasing, Controlling, Complaining, Criticizing, and Clinging in order to, we hope, keep out the pains of life.  The irony is that in failing to Sail the Seven C's, we don't avoid inevitable pain at all, rather we create additional pain for our self.  More importantly, we inadvertently keep out and miss out on the very thing we all crave, unconditional love and genuine happiness.

It's kind of like being at an amusement park, poised to ride that wild, crazy roller coaster called life.  If we choose to Sail the Seven C's, embracing fully our nature to love one another despite the pain we will certainly encounter, we choose to get on the ride, however scared we might be, and experience ALL of it, the extreme ups as well as downs of our one precious, exhilarating life.  I know what choice I want to make.  How about you?