What does it mean to be brave? Who can define bravery? Who tells you that you're brave? According to Google, the word brave as a verb means, "endure or face (unpleasant conditions or behavior) without showing fear". I had a conversation with a friend of mine recently. We talked about how sometimes during the awful parts of recovery, people tell you that you must be brave.
You must "own" or "conquer" whatever it is that is bringing you down. We discussed how on her worst of days, she can't see herself being brave. She feels quite the opposite actually. She feels like nothing. She feels this way because everyone around her tells her what brave actually is. The more I thought about this the more I decided that this really wasn't acceptable at all.
I remember saying to her, "You don't have to be Wonder Woman to be brave". Bravery is not just the superheroes you see on a movie screen. It isn't just people that go out as sacrifice their lives. It most certainly is not just people that don't show fear. Bravery is very much an umbrella term. So, while all of these things do exhibit bravery in every sense, those things can not possibly be the only examples of what it is to be brave. There has to be more.
To me, bravery includes the people that struggle every day just to get out of bed in the morning, but they do it anyway. It is the individual who wants with every fiber of their being to give up but they continue to push on and take on life as it comes because somewhere inside they know they have the power to make life better. Bravery is not having to "own" or "conquer" anything by anyone else's standards. You can certainly be brave and still show fear.
Your bravery is not defined by others. Society sets regulations and mandates on a lot of things. Bravery should not be one of them. Society does not see the demons that haunt someone in their every waking moment. Sometimes even in their dreams. That's something that my friend and I both realized is a very real struggle.
People like to hear your story and pretend like it's okay for you to process and recover in your own way, but they don't actually mean that. After a certain period of time, people expect you to pretend like it never even happened. That's what they think brave is.
That most certainly is not what brave is. Bravery is not avoiding the problem. Bravery is not giving up on recovery and just choosing to ignore what happened. Bravery is definitely not defined by how someone else thinks your progressing. Bravery is whatever you think it is. Bravery is having the power to achieve small victories in the face of a problem and acknowledging the progress you've made.
Bravery is taking whatever happened to you that knocked you down, or whatever made you feel this way, one step at a time. You don't have to bounce back immediately and take life by the horns in order to be considered brave. Bravery is about having the courage to carry on. The worst of days require the most bravery. On my worst of days when all I want to do is crawl in my bed and never come out, are the days that require the most bravery.
When I get out of my bed, I get dressed, and I continue on with my day is when I feel the bravest, because I had to do that on my own. The days when I admit fear when I admit that the things that have caused me pain still haunt me, those are days that I am brave. The day I washed the outfits I was wearing when I went through what I did and decided to wear them again, was the day I felt the bravest. The act of admitting what is happening but choosing to continue on is an act of bravery in itself.
When my friend goes to class, work, and socializes despite everything I know she is struggling with, that is her being brave. When she sees people that remind her of the person who hurt her, but she pushes through her day, that is her brave. Even the littlest of things can be brave.
I can see it in her eyes sometimes that she's still haunted by her past, but I can't help but feel proud of her for her bravery. She gets up, and she carries on despite having every reason to crawl back into bed and ignore the entire world.
Change the way you think about what is brave or who is brave. Don't limit yourself or anyone else to the kind of bravery we see in movies or on T.V. No matter what stage of life you're in I promise you, you're doing something brave every single day. You're speaking to new people, you're getting up and going to work, you're working through an issue. No matter what it is, remind yourself that, although you may not be Superman or Wonder Woman, you're still brave.
