My hope for you is the same hope for myself. That you, YOU, learn to be ok with however your brave shows up. My brave manifests in a variety of ways, but my three main courses of action are baby steps, Cha-cha slide or bold leaps. I have to be honest though, I’m not much of a leaper, bold or otherwise 90% of the time. My normal tendency is to baby step with a little Cha-cha slide to mix things up. I’ve worked hard on accepting this about myself. Truly I have since this is how I move through my fear and how I deal with change. Although the Cha-cha slide looks and feels a lot like being stuck or stagnant.

It’s a process and goes something like this… I begin feeling a low grade, background kind of dissatisfaction, pain or discomfort about someone or some situation that was previously fine or all good. I ignore or deny what I’m feeling or seeing for a while, expecting things or the person to go back to the way it was. Yet it doesn’t and leads to thoughts of change, just thoughts at this point. As I experience more dissatisfaction, pain or discomfort, it pushes me to the point of voicing complaints to anyone and everyone. After complaining (or even whining) about it I start threatening to make a change. Just threats and complaints, mind you! Inevitably the dissatisfaction, pain and discomfort is unbearable  to the point a DECISION gets made, an INTENTION is declared (some type of leap?)… Any of this sound familiar? Well if not, come along for the ride through my process cause now I’m starting to cook with some grease here! There’s a sense of relief. A decision is on the table and I start verbalizing a plan, maybe throw a TIMELINE out there. It feels great, empowering, energizing. So again I tell anyone and everybody. Ah but then reality sets in (hello Cha-cha slide!). How am I going to accomplish my intention, my goal? How exactly “Ms. I’ve-Made-A-Declaration” are we going to get this done? Coming hard on reality’s heels is of course fear.

Now I don’t know about you guys but fear or rather my reaction to fear is to contract within myself, isolate and shut down. Which leaves me alone with my head- running on fear, doubt and insecurity. Thus giving birth to feelings of inadequacy and incompetence. I can dwell in this dark depressive fear induced funk for quite some time, although, thank God, not nearly as long as I used to. In fact, I’m afraid I used to actually live and operate my life from this place but that’s a story for another blog. But guess what I finally learned over the years and eventually kicks into my consciousness? Feelings. Aren’t. Facts. Seriously, they’re not! And I can only wallow, stew and/or isolate for so long. So what happens next? Something else I learned and tend to forget. I finally remember to invite GOD into the process! (What a concept, right?) I reach out to my amazing friends and confidants that I’d been previously withdrawn from. The safe ones, you know? I get open and honest about what’s going on in my deliciously deluded yet divine mind. Small subtle shifts away from my dark delusions of insignificance that lead to baby steps into the light of hope, truth and possibilities.

Always, always, ALWAYS during these baby step phases God/Life/Universe more than meets me halfway because I am moving towards my intentions. To reiterate what this post is about, my normal tendency is to baby step with a little Cha-cha slide when dealing with fear and change. This is more than OK because baby steps and Cha-cha slides are still movement. And movement is life.

Sometime about mid May of this year I decided to do something different. Sally, the owner of a local boutique called Isis Fuller Figure Fashion issued a challenge via video on Facebook to women of all shapes and sizes to take a picture of themselves every day. We were to post the selfie for 20 days straight with #LoveYourSelfie and #HowBigIsYourBrave2015 to all social media (fb/ig/twitter). The premise was to accept who we were regardless of size, shape, with or without make-up. To make a difference in how society perceives women. You are enough. You are perfectly you. Sally told us to invite friends to be a part of the challenge and that we would be amazed at the positive feedback, responses we’d get from our friends and family.

I, myself was just coming out of a fear induced depressive funk and was willing to try something new. I was nervous and a little bit afraid because I’m a fluffy girl, which is my softer, easier way of saying I’m a plus-sized 48 year old woman. But I prefer fluffy girl, so I’m going with that. I did as Sally suggested and re-posted her video to my Facebook page with an open invitation to join me. I had three takers! I thought and hoped there might be more friends willing but we four were the perfect amount it turns out. I’m no stranger to posting the occasional selfie, but I’ve never done it on this scale… everyday for 20 days??? On day one I deliberately took a picture after waking up, in my jammies. No make-up with my sleeping scarf still on my head. Of course I took several and chose the one I could live with out in social media. After many, many deep breaths (practically hyperventilating) I posted it.

Sally was right. The responses were incredibly kind and complimentary, Comments ranged from how smooth my skin was to how pretty I was. Plus there was curiosity about the hashtags, because apparently not all my friends read/view all my posts! On day four I was feeling brave enough to accept a bigger challenge from Jennifer Pastiloff (check her out on Facebook, Instagram @jenniferpastiloff) She’s fucking phenomenal. Her video was a challenge to accept and love your body. Make a 3-5 minute video talking about what you love about your body, post it to her page and she might make it available for viewing. Let me first say that Jennifer Pastiloff had 73K followers at that time, so I never in a million years believed my video would make the cut. Secondly, my video was only 2 minutes and 20 seconds long. But I filmed myself using my phone before I could change my mind. After viewing it once or twice I posted it to her page before I talked myself out of it. Well guess what? My video was the first one she posted!!!! I seriously couldn’t wrap my brain around it and then came all the comments. Every single one was positive and encouraging. EVERY ONE!!! Over 3200 people viewed it over the next couple of days that it was up on her site. And since I posted it from my phone, all of my friends and family had access to it. GOOD LORD. The daily selfie challenge and love your body video were some seriously bold moves for me and the caring, kind responses blew me away.

Halfway through the challenge I posted this: “Day 10 and the halfway point. I had no idea something as simple as posting a selfie every day would make such a difference but it has in a huge way. I’m not just finding out how big my brave is, I’m building my brave- moment by moment, day by day. Doing it with three amazingly beautifully brave friends sweetens the experience. #LoveYourSelfie #HowBigIsYourBrave2015”. So as the remaining 10 days of selfies went by, life happened. My confidence became stronger. So much so that when I got a notice from the apartment property management that they were raising my rent, AGAIN, when my lease was up July 1st, I’d had enough. They’d been doing this nearly every year for the last 6 or 7 years and I’d been having a growing resentment against them and myself for caving in every year and paying the higher rent. Well this year I said no on May 28th and with the help of a dear friend (who was also doing the selfie challenge) I found a better, bigger apartment for $100 less only 5 blocks away. After living in an apartment complex for 14 years I was brave and confident enough to find a better deal!

Somewhere along the way a friend recommended I start a blog about my life experiences working through my fears to accomplish some other newly declared life goals and decisions. I had another name in mind for this blog but that domain name was taken and so Build Your Own Brave, #BYOB just came to me!!!