Reflections on Rising Strong - BY WILL JOSEPH

Rising Strong - Chapter 1 - Part 3

Rule of Engagement for Rising Strong - #2 -  Once we fall in the service of being brave, we can never go back.  Later in the same paragraph Brown writes "Courage transforms the emotional structure of our being.  This change often brings a deep sense of loss."  

I am fascinated by this idea of loss, especially when you combine it with a culture that has forgotten or devalues grief.   As a person who is seeking to live vulnerably, I know this deep sense of loss.  I was talking with a friend who phrased it as the ghosts we see in places around town.  Those ghosts exist in places where we spent time in the past with people who have either intentionally or unintentionally hurt us/moved on/forgotten us/or all of them.  So many of my vulnerable moments both personally or professionally now have ghosts that I face on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.  Some of those ghosts I have worked to try to exorcise through trying to communicate with those people and come to an understanding.  Sometimes that has worked and sometimes it hasn't.  Some of the ghosts just exist and there is no way to communicate with the people they represent.   I see these ghosts as much of the loss that Brown is talking about.  I make no effort to say that I am blameless in any of this or that I am victim, instead I want to recognize the loss I feel in the courageous (but generally normal human) journey that I have attempted so far in my life.  

With this loss in view, the ghost metaphor is so apt.  So many vulnerable and courageous people I know keep this loss about 3 layers below the surface.  If you scratch hard enough, or ask the right questions, it will come out…to read more join our online community Emerging Spaces.