Let’s talk about Being Brave.
Not with a sword, but with our voices. Maybe we use a pen. Maybe we click, clack away on a keyboard, looking up only every now and then at the words born onto the white screen before us. Maybe we are Brave with our voices or a maybe it’s with a paintbrush.
We are Brave when we share our truth with others. We are Braver Still when we know we are not alone.
Jennifer Killi Marshall calls it Finding Our Brave. I call it Writing Without a Filter. Whatever you call it, the premise is the same, whether we write about our personal struggles with bipolar or eating disorders or sexuality, we are brave when we share that which others can connect with and know they are not alone.
What’s my Brave?
I’ll be honest. I’m only halfway home when it comes to fully embracing it. But that’s the beauty of Being Brave. For each of us, Bravery means different things and we are each defining the term for ourselves every time we sit down to share a new Something Personal about ourselves.
Me? I’m a life-long recovering bulimic with compulsive eating tendencies. I’m ADHD and sometimes will do circus tricks if you give me coffee when my brain is moving faster than my medication can work. I have anxiety issues that tend to spike when my ADHD is in high gear and suffer from dermitillomania. That last one is a fancy word for the OCD scab-picking condition I didn’t know wasn’t just a stupid habit I couldn’t break until last year. I’ve suffered from depression, attempted suicide, and founded a website to help myself while helping others learn that nurturing our self-worth and self-image is the key to recovery for many of the demons we deal with daily.
Am I fixed? Hell no. Am I on my way? Today I am. I’ll let you know about tomorrow when it gets here.
How do I manage to Be Brave and share these words with the world? Because I have to. Because I want to. Because I need to.
Because I had to find my Own Brave on my journey and wish I could have known people likeJennifer Killi Marshall when I was looking for someone else to Be Brave with me. I just wanted someone to relate to.
We need each other to make This is My Brave a reality. Together, we can be Braver, and isn’t that the point?
Wife to The Husband and mother to “Buttercup,” Pauline has decided that it’s time to make peace with her cellulite after moving to northern Maine because she knows how to rock the Drama Queen. The “being severely allergic to mesquite and the entire southern border” thing also makes for a great punchline while proving that it is, in fact, entirely possible to be allergic to being Mexican.
Pauline has always known she was going to be a writer and finally got tired of hearing The Husband ask when she was going to make him rich, so she finally stopped dreaming and started doing. But then she got distracted by a squirrel wearing something shiny.
Pauline got started in newspapers and served as city editor for a few local papers before hitting the big time at The Detroit News and freelancing for the Metro-Detroit based Metro Parent Magazine before taking a break after baby. She has blogged for Funny Not Slutty, Owning Pink, and is a regular contributor at 30 Second Mom while maintaining her own blog at Aspiring Mama. Girl Body Pride is her answer to a lifetime of self-doubt, body image issues, and an eating disorder. She is represented by literary agent Michele Martin of MDM Management. Connect with her on herAbout.Me page.
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