BRAVE ISN'T A FEELING.
BRAVERY & TALL POPPIES
“The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity.”
I really, really love it when similar themes pop up in the Q&A portion of the talks I give or the follow up workshops. To me, it means something is rubbing up against an idea that needs to be examined, or that is where we ARE, as women and men, at this moment, with all these ideas around gender and culture and confidence and authenticity merging and bumping into one another.
The first time I noted a discussion around the word "BRAVE" was at the Bristol Improv Theatre after my talk there in Spring 2019. One of the women spoke about feeling taxed on the need to always feel brave when having to be one of the only women in rooms and casts and crews of men - what it took to stand up for her ideas (as director and creator of the material) and keep standing up. "I wish I felt brave more of the time." and a lively discussion about that continued. Hmmm. Interesting. Noted.
Then several months later, I'm in Melbourne (healthy brag section, yes) running a BUSTING THE GOOD GIRL workshop with a group of 12 fabulous women. Which came on the heels of the workshop I did the week prior to a similarly impressive group of women in Sydney. These workshops are one of my absolute favorite things to do in the universe, and needless to say it gets even MORE interesting and fun when I do them abroad, getting to see how identical we all are in so many mind-blowing ways, and also how we are different…how culture plays a huge part in the GOOD GIRL’s stronghold - her ammo, her methods and her punishments. And also, how our FUCK-ITs look and feel THE SAME, no matter where I am.
While discussing what our FUCK-IT wants, one of the women shared she is an actress and was expressing how much she KNOWS she is meant to do big, fun, juicy, scene-eating roles (and even just meeting her we ALL knew she is built for that as well) but culture, family, and the effin’ GOOD GIRL have been chipping away at her confidence to do so. It’s a familiar move of the GOOD GIRL —to make you question if you deserve anything bigger, if you even have the talent to pull it off, or “who do you think you are anyway and when are you going to give up on this silly hobby and settle down and get serious about life.” That whole thing. Plus in places like Australia and the UK, there's an extra layer of "don't you dare think big" called The Tall Poppy Syndrome. (Australia actually COINED the term).
"Tall poppy” is an Australian cultural term that refers to people who stand out for their high abilities, enviable qualities, and /or visible success. But standing out, in this case, isn’t viewed positively. In a society that prides itself on egalitarian principals, rising above the pack is considered antisocial and countercultural. Tall poppies generate hostility and elicit a host of undermining behaviors to bring them down a peg. This compelling desire to cut high achievers down to size is called the ‘tall poppy syndrome.”
Tall Poppy PLUS The Good Girl???!!! Yikes AND Oy Vey!
She was sharing how her GOOD GIRL speaks to her, and she said something to the effect of, “I walk to all these auditions not as me, I'm smaller and more worried about getting it 'right'...I wish I was BRAVE so I could always show up fully, completely MYSELF." and a lively discussion followed. Hmmm. Interesting. Hold on...this sounds like a THEME!
It got me thinking about my own experiences and what I’ve seen with countless women and going for what they want. And I realized:
BRAVE is not an emotion. Well, officially it is. It has two definitions, one an adjective: ready to face and endure danger or pain. But what I'm interested in is NOT the adjective, the readiness. It's the ACTION. The verb: endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behavior) without showing fear or allowing fear to stop you.
It’s a DECISION. It’s an action you do and keep doing. You know someone is being BRAVE because of how they BEHAVE...not by how they feel necessarily.
In movies, there’s always VERY uplifting and dramatic theme music when someone, in slo-mo of course, looks at the top of that mountain and starts climbing. Or opens the door in the cabin, knowing the zombies are outside…but so is the get-away truck. Name your action movie and chances are there a moment like that. Now, bravery isn’t rage, you can’t show the character’s face scrunching up as they (in slo-mo as well) scream…like a SCRRRREEEEAAAAMMMMM!!!! … No, bravery is much calmer and cooler. In a movie it might just be the character looking up from a book, or across a room. But something HAS happened. A decision has been made.
A decision, unfortunately, with no fireworks to tell you that now, it will all be different. No fanfare. Even the fear or worry doesn’t disappear necessarily. But now it doesn’t have to because something has happened. That’s why music is needed. It cues us, AH! Now everything will be different! They’re gonna DO IT! NO. MATTER. WHAT.
Being brave comes first. You say, ENOUGH. You say, I don’t want to be this worried person, I don’t want to keep throwing myself under the bus, I don’t want to take less than what I expect – what I DESERVE. And with that, a choice is made. It’s the most undetectable shift, you just say that you won’t anymore. But it IS detectable because you know you’ve made it. You drew, undramatically, a line in the sand and stepped over it. No going back.
That’s it? Yup. Because what else would it be? The entire world changing, everyone all at the same time, and making everything different FOR you? Or you suddenly wake up ‘more brave’? Or someone yells at you and forces you to be more brave? Can someone actually FORCE anyone to be BRAVE? I can’t imagine it. I think someone can force someone to act in a variety of ways but to actually become brave? I think that is up to each of us. And it IS a choice. “I’m going to stop doing this and start doing that for no other reason that I want to, and it’s time.”
Which means you can do it right now, in fact. Any of us can, at any time. We can look at that THING that we want to be different and with no fanfare whatsoever just decide to do it different. I do it because I choose it. Then we aren't waiting for circumstances to define us and decide our lives for us. We are not DEPENDENT on anything outside of ourselves. I don't know if there's anything more powerful than that. And especially when taking on culture...if we are waiting for CULTURE to change, we may be waiting a lifetime. But, right now, ANY of us can decide that we want more than what culture offers us or dictates to us.
(if you're in LA and this interests you, we will be talking about and tackling these kinds of things in my BUSTING THE GOOD GIRL workshops - info below!)
An Alice Walker quote I love, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”