Life is hard...let there be anthems

 Life is hard sometimes and full of pain. The famous quote from Princess Bride is not far off from reality and we all can relate.

Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly, talks about the importance of having an anthem for those times when life is hard. When you are fighting in the arena and feel beaten down and like you just can’t get up one more time – it is important to remind yourself that you can do it. You can be brave and show up in life and take risks. I am taking a class from Brené online with a friend – and our homework many weeks ago was to come up with our anthem. The song that inspires us. A song to put on loudly that will pump you up and inspire you to keep going. She was adamant about it – use headphones, turn up the speakers...really know your song. Brené can be a little intense.

I did my homework…always the good little girl. I love music and have lots of random songs on my phone – so scrolled through the day before we were going to talk about our anthems. I found one that I felt pretty okay with. We talked about it – had a good discussion. And I forgot about it. I actually listened to my friend’s anthem a lot of times…but mine got forgotten (not untypical for me…we are working on self-care in Brené now but that is another post).

Recently, life got hard…as life does. Things happen that you don’t expect and you feel shoved off a cliff and spiral into despair. I got shoved and landed at the bottom of a pit that I didn’t feel like I could climb out of.

“Listen to your anthem,” my “oh, so not helpful” friend told me. “Be brave.”

I don’t do so well when people remind me to be healthy and remind me that I have the tools to help myself not wallow. I would prefer to just play the victim and curl up in my ball of sadness. I resonate with “Sadness” from Inside Out for a reason. Don’t you just want to let me lie here and you can pull me around by my foot?

I half-heartedly listened to my anthem once. Told my friend to shut up a few times (no joke). Whined a bit…cried a lot.

Then today I was driving around in my car at lunch listening to a random playlist on my Amazon Prime account. There are a million songs on there…not chosen carefully…just there to listen to if I need some variety. Today I hit shuffle. And this song came on.

And I have a new anthem.

This song said everything I feel. That life is hard and sometimes you just don’t want to keep going and you don’t want to take risks anymore…but you can rise up and be strong. In spite of the ache…in spite of the pain that doesn’t go away…it just dulls over time. I will continue to take the same risks and will continue to fall and continue to experience pain…and will rise up a thousand times and do it again.

I am listening to this song with my headphones on and the sound turned up real loud. Because Brené was right…turning it up real loud drowns out the voices in your head that tell you that you are not going to be okay. And this too shall pass.