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So I shared my first Shitty First Draft in a lovely, small discord server I’m in. And my friend said “It can be hard to claim titles like that. In the parlance of a fall, I’d say I didn’t fall, so much as sauntered vaguely downwards.”
Once I’d stopped laughing, it occurred to me that he’s right and this is a useful concept. In their podcast, Lani and Kelly are always talking about reframing concepts so that they work for you. A lot about Brene Brown’s book needs reframing, for me, to be useful.
Here’s the context of the comment. if you don’t know Good Omens (either the book or the TV show - they’re both great)... Crowley is a demon, but he isn’t really a bad demon. The writers say that he’s an angel who didn’t so much fall, as sauntered vaguely downwards. This is a very in-character comment for him. He doesn’t take anything too seriously - until he does.
I know about falling. And sometimes it’s hard to take a fall seriously. I once tumbled off a bus ramp, out of my wheelchair (thankfully, it didn’t end up on top of me), ending up on the pavement. I had almost no choice in what I was going to do next. For a little while, I was terrified, while my carer picked me up off the ground and a doctor visited. And then my spouse came home, and while they were totally sympathetic, we both laughed at the image of me, flat on my face - again. Laughing helped.
And then we started to take it seriously, and together we worked out how to get me back on my feet. We needed a medical care plan to deal with my wonky body being a bit more broken than most people’s might be after that fall. My spouse, who trained as a lawyer, helped me take a legal claim against the bus company (the ramp was broken). Together we helped me work through some fear of public transport that resulted - and while I’ve continued to be affected by that, I can now travel on buses again.
This sort of takes me back to the book. I’m re-reading and working through Chapter 1, where Dr Brown says:
When I was writing the other day and resisting the concept of a fall, I can see that I was working from what Dr Brown calls a scarcity model of suffering. Your suffering is worse than mine because... You are more entitled to concepts like ‘trauma’ and a ‘fall’ because... When we do this, we invalidate our own worthiness. And, as I was trying to explore yesterday, all of this ‘Rising Strong’ work starts from the realisation of our worthiness. From the idea that we are enough.
Hurt is hurt, and honouring our own struggle recognises our own worthiness.
Some people would say that I had a Big Fall. (For example, I became physically disabled and had to retire very early from my teaching job; I couldn’t work for many years; I still deal with pain and illness on a daily basis... and that’s just the beginning.) From another perspective, when compared with other people’s struggles, all that happened to me was that I sauntered vaguely downwards. But I think it doesn’t matter which is the reality. I’m still facedown in the mud after a ‘towering’. I still need to decide what the fuck I’m going to do next.
I can honour my own struggle - even if a big part of what I need to rumble with, in this process, is the need to be heard by others. Maybe they won’t always - or ever - be able to hear or validate my story. (Dr Brown does talk about the loneliness of this process.) But I can do the validation thing for myself. I’m not saying that’s going to be easy... But it’s a choice I can make.
In a fanfic series I’m writing, a character is going through a messy redemption process. In writing it, I’m working through the idea of who we decide we’re going to be. “My choices are my own,” the character says. He’s choosing who he’s going to be.
I want to choose who I’m going to be.
My ‘YES’ for this week* is the same as (I think) Kelly’s was one week: I want to be in the arena. Dr Brown talks about how, after we’ve been brave and it’s been followed by a fall, we end up facedown in the arena. That’s when we have to make the choice to get up, or not. On the podcast, they talk about ‘towering’ (as in, the tarot card The Tower), and how after that kind of experience you can end up facedown in the mud with choices to make. Or, also to draw on an image from the podcast, when the barn has burnt down around you, you have to decide whether to roll over and look up at the stars.
I started this ‘Rising Strong’ process because I’m sick of letting life happen to me, and feeling like I have no choice in how I respond. I might not always like the limited range of choices I get offered, but I always, always have choices. About how I’m going to react, and who I’m going to be.
Now that I’ve sauntered vaguely downwards and ended up facedown, the collapsed Tower in rubble all around me, what am I going to do next?
The answer ‘get back up’ might sound really simple, but I think I need to keep consciously making that choice. It’s not an easy answer, when you’ve been down this long.
I think Crowley might say: Heaven and Hell might not want me back, but there’s still things in the world worth getting up and living for.
*When I say ‘for the week’, I’m following the podcast structure of doing one of these homework things per week. I suspect it’s going to be several weeks on each, honestly. This is heavy, complex and difficult stuff, and I’m disabled and have a job. :D
Once I’d stopped laughing, it occurred to me that he’s right and this is a useful concept. In their podcast, Lani and Kelly are always talking about reframing concepts so that they work for you. A lot about Brene Brown’s book needs reframing, for me, to be useful.
Here’s the context of the comment. if you don’t know Good Omens (either the book or the TV show - they’re both great)... Crowley is a demon, but he isn’t really a bad demon. The writers say that he’s an angel who didn’t so much fall, as sauntered vaguely downwards. This is a very in-character comment for him. He doesn’t take anything too seriously - until he does.
I know about falling. And sometimes it’s hard to take a fall seriously. I once tumbled off a bus ramp, out of my wheelchair (thankfully, it didn’t end up on top of me), ending up on the pavement. I had almost no choice in what I was going to do next. For a little while, I was terrified, while my carer picked me up off the ground and a doctor visited. And then my spouse came home, and while they were totally sympathetic, we both laughed at the image of me, flat on my face - again. Laughing helped.
And then we started to take it seriously, and together we worked out how to get me back on my feet. We needed a medical care plan to deal with my wonky body being a bit more broken than most people’s might be after that fall. My spouse, who trained as a lawyer, helped me take a legal claim against the bus company (the ramp was broken). Together we helped me work through some fear of public transport that resulted - and while I’ve continued to be affected by that, I can now travel on buses again.
This sort of takes me back to the book. I’m re-reading and working through Chapter 1, where Dr Brown says:
“Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.”
When I was writing the other day and resisting the concept of a fall, I can see that I was working from what Dr Brown calls a scarcity model of suffering. Your suffering is worse than mine because... You are more entitled to concepts like ‘trauma’ and a ‘fall’ because... When we do this, we invalidate our own worthiness. And, as I was trying to explore yesterday, all of this ‘Rising Strong’ work starts from the realisation of our worthiness. From the idea that we are enough.
Hurt is hurt, and honouring our own struggle recognises our own worthiness.
Some people would say that I had a Big Fall. (For example, I became physically disabled and had to retire very early from my teaching job; I couldn’t work for many years; I still deal with pain and illness on a daily basis... and that’s just the beginning.) From another perspective, when compared with other people’s struggles, all that happened to me was that I sauntered vaguely downwards. But I think it doesn’t matter which is the reality. I’m still facedown in the mud after a ‘towering’. I still need to decide what the fuck I’m going to do next.
I can honour my own struggle - even if a big part of what I need to rumble with, in this process, is the need to be heard by others. Maybe they won’t always - or ever - be able to hear or validate my story. (Dr Brown does talk about the loneliness of this process.) But I can do the validation thing for myself. I’m not saying that’s going to be easy... But it’s a choice I can make.
In a fanfic series I’m writing, a character is going through a messy redemption process. In writing it, I’m working through the idea of who we decide we’re going to be. “My choices are my own,” the character says. He’s choosing who he’s going to be.
I want to choose who I’m going to be.
My ‘YES’ for this week* is the same as (I think) Kelly’s was one week: I want to be in the arena. Dr Brown talks about how, after we’ve been brave and it’s been followed by a fall, we end up facedown in the arena. That’s when we have to make the choice to get up, or not. On the podcast, they talk about ‘towering’ (as in, the tarot card The Tower), and how after that kind of experience you can end up facedown in the mud with choices to make. Or, also to draw on an image from the podcast, when the barn has burnt down around you, you have to decide whether to roll over and look up at the stars.
I started this ‘Rising Strong’ process because I’m sick of letting life happen to me, and feeling like I have no choice in how I respond. I might not always like the limited range of choices I get offered, but I always, always have choices. About how I’m going to react, and who I’m going to be.
Now that I’ve sauntered vaguely downwards and ended up facedown, the collapsed Tower in rubble all around me, what am I going to do next?
The answer ‘get back up’ might sound really simple, but I think I need to keep consciously making that choice. It’s not an easy answer, when you’ve been down this long.
I think Crowley might say: Heaven and Hell might not want me back, but there’s still things in the world worth getting up and living for.
*When I say ‘for the week’, I’m following the podcast structure of doing one of these homework things per week. I suspect it’s going to be several weeks on each, honestly. This is heavy, complex and difficult stuff, and I’m disabled and have a job. :D
