It’s the part where surrender is the only path to triumph. 

Brené Brown

Brené Brown, once again, knocked me on my tail. She published an essay, “Hard Season and Wild Hearts” on her website. She has taken some time away from social media, and this post signaled her measured return. I have missed her generous presence. I have missed her vulnerability and bravery. I have missed her thoughtfulness and rigor. I have missed her humor and honesty. I have missed her compassion and love.

This week, as I wade through the weight and possibility of a still new year, as I make sense of the successes and failures that have already happened, as winter bears down in a cold gray of complicated motivation, desire, fear, and hope, I consider Brown’s words. They introduce me to the idea that I live in Act II — “the long, messy part of all stories where we watch the protagonist try to solve problems without being vulnerable and asking for help. It’s the part where surrender is the only path to triumph.” I am deep in Act II and not sure when it started and when it will end. Vulnerability feels like pouring peroxide on a wound. Surrender was my Word of the Year last year and I still feel queasy thinking about it. I have too much ego not to see it as giving in or giving up. I am in the part where I have to remember to breathe and show up. At church, we started practicing embodied prayer — repeated deep cleansing breaths focused on releasing what separates us from feeling absolutely loved. It is important to feel absolutely loved. Perhaps surrender means believing deep in our bones that we are absolutely loved. As Act II continues, I will keep being present and breathing and reminding myself that I am absolutely loved.

What I Learned This Week

Thinking Out Loud

Taking weekly stock of how I am doing is my practice of thinking out loud. As an exercise in examination, reflection, and (hopefully) growth, Weekly Wide-Awake is my attempt to join with others who model curiosity, generosity, and love through their thoughts, writing, and actions. Thinking is not a destination. Planning does not accomplish much. Action can feel like running in place. Growth — the fruit of the thinking, planning, and action tree — is the sweetness of it all. As I record the workouts, money, contacts, pages, pounds, etc. — paying attention to my journey — I hold it all. Not burning it all down and not giving up. Not forgetting to celebrate inches and small bites and every damn time I show up. That is growth. The thinking out loud part is sharing it with others. 

Giving Over Not Giving Up

This thought jumped out at me from Brown’s words. (She references Sarah Lewis in sharing this thought.) As I have written about tinkering toward urgency — and feeling like my lack of urgency around urgent things means I am dangerously close to giving up and someone who gives up is not who I am — the idea that surrender might mean giving over rather than giving up is like a cool glass of water. If surrender is the path to triumph — and surrender is about giving over — I am all in. Let me explain. Giving over might look like trusting that love wins if I show up for myself and others. Love wins. Giving over might look like believing in perfect time — like tides, seasons, blossoming flowers, and ripening fruit. Giving over might look like saying yes or no, radical joy or failure, burning or planting. Giving over takes practice — like unclenching fists, learning new things, and remembering to breathe. 

Gratitude

The biggest thing I accomplished this week was sending out an email invitation. In the summer of 2016, I started interviewing people about gratitude. My journey to understand gratitude and live gratefully continues to this day. So far, I have interviewed more than 30 people, transcribed over 50 hours of conversations, taught a writing class about gratitude in a men’s federal prison, blogged consistently, and published five articles exploring gratitude in leading online spaces.

One of my 2024 goals is to turn this work into a publishable manuscript. I am looking for readers who are available to read and respond to the manuscript. I will have a manuscript ready in the spring and would appreciate written feedback to guide editing by the end of summer. I plan to independently publish the manuscript by the end of the year.

Writing this book has been a goal for several years. (I have been talking about it a long time.) Sending out this email was a leap of faith, a dose of accountability, and a bet on myself to get it done. Currently, I have had six people agree to read the manuscript. Now, I must pull the interview text, essay content, and new material together. (Let me know if you want to read a manuscript this summer!) 

Paying Attention

1. A Conversation between Brené Brown and Adam Grant
2. Creativity, Surrender, and Aesthetic Force: A Conversation between Brené Brown and Sarah Lewis
3. Burning The Old Year, Naomi Shihab Nye
4. Taking a Long View of Time, and Becoming “Critical Yeast”, On Being
5. Brené Brown with Bono on Songs of Surrender and Carrying the Weight