When We Find Courage, We inspire Them To Fly

I watched Brene Brown’s The Call to Courage on Netflix last night and she shared that we can’t be courageous without being vulnerable. 

What does it mean to be vulnerable as a parent?

When we first become parents we are by default vulnerable – we don’t know what we are doing, we don’t feel capable or ready, everyone is judging us and we can’t run away. 

In response to this, many of us create coping mechanisms to get us through the day and most of these are linked to us looking like we know what we are doing.  

It is exhausting.  

Somehow we have decided on the inside that we need to hold it all together and we have prioritised this need over the need to show up as ourselves. 

The irony is, our children need us to be authentic or they struggle to connect with us and learn from us. 

They need to watch us be vulnerable so they can learn how to do it too.

So what might vulnerability look like as a parent? 

I learnt from Brene that vulnerability isn’t about trying to be one of their friends or breaking down in front of them and sharing things they really don’t need to hear.

It is about being totally honest and choosing courage over comfort in every moment.

Choosing courage over comfort as a parent might look like this:

• Committing to learning more about ourselves and admitting we don’t always know what we are doing.
• Saying “no” when it would be much easier to say “yes” or “yes” when it would be much easier to say”no”
• Pausing before responding.
• Sharing the hard stuff that needs to be said but makes us (and them) feel awkward. 
• Sharing our mistakes and apologising when we get it wrong.
• Staying quiet when they are upset so they can find their own truth.
• Saying “I don’t know” when they ask us to tell them what to do. (Even though we have millions of ideas) So they are compelled to find answers themselves.
• Letting them take an action that we don’t agree with.
• Fighting all our instincts to rescue them when they are finding things tough.

I could keep going – there are so many.

What else would you add to this list?

Which one do you find the hardest?

All of the above demand our courage in the small moments as well as the big. 

Every time we find this courage, we inspire them to fly.