There is so much good stuff in the book I'm reading ("Daring Greatly") I thought I should post some of it here for others to ponder. I'm just posting things I've read in the last couple of days that speak to me, so it's not totally representative of all the material..

On Perfection:



On what I've come to call "the paralysis of analysis"



On numbing as a strategy for avoiding pain and shame



More to follow on anxiety

And a little more that might speak to fellow anxiety sufferers.

more...

On shame and anxiety



on boundaries and limits as a strategy to combat anxiety



On the two types of people who combat anxiety..guess which group I am. Guess which group DH is in?

Oh man Miranda, I spent years as a Group B person. I needed a lot of help and practice to make the shift, it's not easy!

NED, Group B is the group you WANT to be in...lol

But hey I put myself out there and made a choice. It's okay if I make the wrong one, right?

I guess I identified Group A - defined the challenge of anxiety as finding ways to manage and soothe the anxiety as acceptance

and Group B - defined the problem as changing the behaviors that led to anxiety as trying to fix others' stuff

But it sounds like I missed the point

And THAT ladies and gentlemen is what is wrong with basing anything off the snippets that speak to ME!

lol, Group A tries to soothe and manage, Group B sets boundaries, and looks at what they can control to remove the problem permanently.

The writer is really really good, I just got too ruthless with my clipping and pasting.

nah Miranda I think it's just the medium. Thanks it makes sense to me now

hi Miranda! i'm late to the party, but am trying to understand the above quote.

i suffer from horrible anxiety (there was a time when i needed prescription drugs, but i am currently managing without meds). if i had to put myself in a group, i would say i was Group A-- solely for the reason that my anxiety does not always stem from things that i have total control over.

as an example-- i HATE to fly, but i can manage to board a plane and stay seated for a 5 hour flight. i manage to stay calm with earplugs, relaxation exercises, etc. i consider these to be types of self-soothing.

while i could choose Plan B and just avoid getting on the plane (avoding the behavior that causes the anxiety), i don't find that as being practical. and where is the personal growth?

or did the author mean that each individual will find themselves choosing between one of the camps depending on the "challenge?"

interesting discussion! thank you!

Marie,

I'm explaining it REALLY badly. The idea is that instead of managing your anxiety you look for SOLUTIONS.

Of course in some cases, I guess that doesn't really apply. I don't know.

I'm just not doing it justice by trying to explain it.

There was a book Soolee recommended long ago called the Fear Book, and it talked about a fear of skiing, telling yourself it's okay, you don't have to ski. And the once the fear has subsided, you are free to look at whether this is something you really want to do or not. The lady wound up skiing all day and enjoying it.

thanks, Miranda, for trying! ... perhaps i'll go to B & N, grab one of their comfy chairs, and browse thru the book for a while.

First of all the quotation from Theodore Roosevelt's speech where the title came from is AWESOME. I'm going to print it out and give it to my middle son.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Chapter 1

"I see the shame-based fear of being ordinary.....I see the cultural messaging everywhere that says that an ordinary life is a meaningless life."

Bingo..exactly how I feel!!!!!

Chapter 2
"To feel is to be vulnerable. To believe vulnerability is weakness is to believe that feeling is weakness. To foreclose on our emotional life out of fear that the cost will be too high is to walk away from the very thing that gives purpose and meaning."

Then this that I think will be my new guiding question:

" Then seconds before I was introduced, I thought about a paperweight on my desk that reads, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" I pushed that question out of my head to make room for a new question. As I walked up to the stage, I literally whispered aloud, "What is worth doing even if I fail?"

That is a whole new paradigm.. I've always equated failure as just failure. Doing things not to the best level as a horrible failure.. But what would I do even if I fail?? Very, very good question.. So some things are just worth doing regardless of the actual outcome??

"Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them."

Then she talked about how people betray our trust and that the worst betrayal is NOT someone telling your secret to someone else ( though that is bad1) ..."but there is a particular sort of betrayal that is more insidious and equally corrosive to trust In fact, this betrayal usually happens long before the other ones. I'm talking about the betrayal of disengagement. Of not caring. Of letting the connection go. Of not being willing to devote the time and effort into the relationship."

Here is an example that SO applies to marriage

"What I've found through research is that trust is built in very small moments which I call "sliding door" moments after the movie Sliding Doors. In any interaction, there is a possibility of connecting with our partner or turning away from your partner.
Let me give you an example of that from my own relationship. One night, I really wanted to finish a mystery novel. I thought I knew who the killer was, but I was anxious to find out. At one point in the night, I put the novel on my bedside and walked into the bathroom.
As I passed the mirror, I saw my wife's face in reflection, and she looked sad, brushing her hair. there was a sliding door moment.
I had a choice. I could sneak out of the bedroom and think, I don't want to deal with her sadness tonight; I want to read my novel. But instead, because I'm a sensitive researcher of relationships, I decided to go to the bathroom, I took the brush from her hair and asked, "What's the matter baby?" And she told me why she was sad.
Now at that moment, I was building trust; I was there for her. I was connecting with her rather than choosing to think abut only what I wanted. These are the moments, we've discovered, that build trust.
One such moment is not that important, but if you're always choosing to turn away, then trust erodes in a relationship---very gradually, very slowly."

Wow, that is EXACTLY what happens to most marriages. Wow, just wow.

And finally, "We simply can't learn to be more vulnerable or courageous on our own. Sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support."

Yeah, I have more stuff highlighted in that book than I have EVER highlighted, and I have a science degree...

It's amazing stuff. I really like that last part, "sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support" If you let that be your FIRST step on the path of Daring Greatly, you're doing awesome.

I haven't watched it yet, but I found the talk she references in the book:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

apparently she has a few online videos, but I don't watch vids, so I have never investigated that.

I really love this book so far!

What do you like about it? Is there something you've found particularly helpful?

It is helping me identify why being vulnerable in my marriage again is hard and how to find my way back there again.

I loved everything about this book. For me and where I've been especially the parenting chapter towards the end, living by your values. I've been working on this for years and this chapter gave me some fresh momentum to stay in the game and keep making tough choices. Marta you were inspiring me similarly something you had posted about sowing and reaping.

OMG! Viking or Victim? That's the MA dynamic.