No. That is not the understanding of brave I want my children to have. I do not want my children to become people who abandon themselves to please the crowd.
Brave does not mean feeling afraid and doing it anyway.
Brave means living from the inside out. Brave means, in every uncertain moment, turning inward, feeling for the Knowing, and speaking it out loud.
Since the Knowing is specific, personal, and ever changing, so is brave. Whether you are brave or not cannot be judged by people on the outside. Sometimes being brave requires letting the crowd think you’re a coward. Sometimes being brave means letting everyone down but yourself. Amma’s brave is often: loud and go for it. Tish’s brave is often: quiet and wait for it. They are both brave girls, because each is true to herself. They are not divided between what they feel and know on the inside and what they say and do on the outside. Their selves are integrated. They have integrity.
Tish showed tremendous bravery that day because keeping her integrity required her to resist the pressure of the crowd. She trusted her own voice more than she trusted the voices of others. Brave is not asking the crowd what is brave. Brave is deciding for oneself.
On the way home from the mall I said, “Tish, I know that lady made you feel unbrave today. People have different ideas about what’s brave. You did the brave thing, because the brave thing is doing what your Knowing tells you to do. You don’t ask others what’s brave, you feel and know what’s brave. What you know to do might be the opposite of what others are telling you to do. It takes special bravery to honor yourself when the crowd is pressuring you not to. It’s easier just to give in. You didn’t give in to the crowd today. You stood strong in what you felt and knew. To me, that’s the greatest bravery. That’s true confidence, which means loyalty to self. That’s what you move through the world with, Tish: confidence. Regardless of what others are calling ‘brave’ at the moment: You stay loyal to yourself.
“If you keep living with confidence, the rest of your life will unfold exactly as it is meant to. It won’t always be comfortable. Some will recognize your brave; others won’t. Some will understand and like you; others won’t. But the way others respond to your confidence is not your business. Your business is to stay loyal to you. That way, you will always know that those who do like and love you are really your people. You’ll never be forced to hide or act in order to keep people if you don’t hide or act to get them.”
To be brave is to forsake all others to be true to yourself.
That is the vow of a confident girl.
I met Liz at an airport. We were speaking at the same event somewhere out west. I flew all night to get there and then found myself in a small terminal, standing outside a circle made up of other speakers waiting to be picked up and delivered to the event. I hate how people stand in circles. I wish we’d all agree to stand around in horseshoes, with room available for awkward outsiders to join.
A woman walked over from baggage claim and stood next to me. I smiled and stayed quiet, which is my strategy for making it through. She smiled back, but her smile was different from mine. My smile says: Hello, I am warm, polite, and unavailable. I smile like a period. Liz smiles slowly and openly, like a question mark.
“Hi. I’m Liz.”
“I know,” I said. “I adore your work. I’m Glennon.”
“Oh my gosh! I know you. I adore your work, too. Where are you from?”
“I live in Naples, Florida.”
“What’s it like to live there?”
“It’s slow. It’s a retirement city. I’d say the average age in my neighborhood is eighty. The cool thing is that most of my friends are turning forty and worried about starting to look old. Not me. I feel fantastic. Like a spring chicken. I go to the gym, look around at all the grandparents, and think ‘Actually, I don’t need to work out after all. I look amazing.’ It’s all perspective, right? I tell my friends to skip the Botox and just move to Naples.”
Liz says, “Wonderful. How did you end up there?”
“I got neurological Lyme disease a few years ago. My entire body shut down, and I was in bed for two years and popping fifty pills a day. I went to stay in my friend’s place in Naples, and I felt so much better. I moved there temporarily, and I was able to ditch the pills, so I just stayed. I’ve always known I wanted to live by the beach. I guess women have to almost die before we give ourselves permission to live how we want.”
Liz put her hand on my arm and said, “Wait. Wow. That last thing you said—about having to almost die—can you say that again?”
I said, “I don’t think so. I’m a little nervous. I have no idea what I just said.”
She smiled and said, “I like you.”
“I like you, too.”
The next night, along with everyone else at the convention, I went to see Liz speak. I got to the event early and claimed a seat in the front but off to the side—close enough to see her clearly but not close enough for her to see me clearly. She was standing behind the podium wearing a black shirt with a high white collar, and she reminded me of a priest at a pulpit. When she started speaking, I found myself holding my breath. She spoke with gentleness and authority. A man in the front row kept talking to the woman beside him, and Liz paused midsentence, turned to him, and asked him to stop talking. He did. Something about the way she spoke, the way she carried herself, made my heart beat quicker than usual. She seemed certain, steady, free, relaxed. She was not complying and she was not rebelling. She was creating something new. She was original. I wanted to ask “Can you say all of that again?”
The next night, all the speakers attended a fancy banquet in a ski lodge at the top of a mountain. Snow was flurrying outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, and people were flurrying inside, trying to figure out where to stand and who was important enough to talk to.
I saw Liz in a corner across the room, surrounded. My general policy is to honor people I admire by leaving them alone. I didn’t that night. I walked over to her, and when she saw me she smiled like another beginning. I drew closer, joined the huddle. The entire circle was pressing Liz with questions and requests for advice like she was a vending machine. I wanted to step on their toes.
After a while, the host of the event walked over and said to Liz, “It’s time to take our seats for dinner. May I lead you to your table?”
Liz pointed to me and asked, “Can I sit with my friend?”
The woman looked nervous, then apologetic. “I’m sorry. We’ve promised the donors that you’d sit with them.”
“Okay,” she said. She looked forlorn. She squeezed my arm and said, “I’ll miss you.”
During the dinner I thought about how much I liked Liz and how sad it was that we wouldn’t actually be able to be friends. Attempting to be her friend would be like intentionally writing a bad check. I am not a good friend. I have never been capable of or willing to commit to the maintenance that the rules of friendship dictate. I cannot remember birthdays. I do not want to meet for coffee. I will not host the baby shower. I won’t text back because it’s an eternal game of Ping-Pong, the texting. It never ends. I inevitably disappoint friends, so after enough of that, I decided I would stop trying. I don’t want to live in constant debt. This is okay with me. I have a sister and children and a dog. One cannot have it all.