Book Review: Rising Strong by Bréne Brown

I have spent a lot of my time in the last 11 years mourning. This is the time that I have been dealing with my chronic physical and mental illnesses. I have 14 diagnoses and only one can be cured, so grief is part of my life as I have dealt with a lot of loss. Loss my physical abilities and loss of relationships that were not healthy and had to be removed from my life. Rising Strong by Bréne Brown is a nonfiction self help book about learning how to grieve loss in order to be better. It is a good book about psychology, personal development, leadership, mental health and grieving. Much of it was review for me, but there were several helpful elements too.

The Rising Strong Process

1. Recognize emotions have been triggered and connect those emotions to thoughts or behaviors.
2. Revisit, challenge and reality check our stories to learn who we are and how we engage with others.
3. Fundamentally change our thoughts and beliefs to more courageous endings.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. — CS Lewis

Elements of Grief

• Feelings of Loss – Grief makes us reorient ourself physically, emotionally and socially
• Longing – Involuntary desire for wholeness since grief comes in waves, we cane be surprised by what can trigger or what can matter to us.
• Loss – Loss of normalcy. What we thought we knew about something or someone.

We can’t rise strong when we’re on the run. — Bréne Brown

To truly forgive we must be willing to grieve. We must bury expectations of relationship or dreams. We must give up on being right. We must give up on support and approval of others.

Shame, judgement, privilege, connection, need, fear and self-worth can all be part of the same coin. If you can look at another human in the eye, can it be our own fear of need? Can it be our own privilege not allowing us to see our similarities? We have not been taught to give, but to receive our really see who we are giving to as our equal. In a moments notice, our circumstance could change and make us equals, not just as we actually are, but as society measures us.

Blame kills relationships and organizational cultures because it is toxic.

Authenticity is required for healthy relationship because with it comes action, courage, honesty and the ability to make amends. When you feel like getting even, maybe you should get curious as to what feelings you are feeling. Why are you needing to get revenge? What has caused you shame?

To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. — Aristotle

Find a list of memoirs that are encouraging on https://brenebrown.com/library/.

Books mentioned:

• The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
• The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu
• The Places the Scare You by Pema Chodron
• The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz

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I got this book from my personal collection. You can get your own copy of Rising Strong by Bréne Brown on Amazon.

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Read My Review on GoodReads:

Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution by Brené Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book by Bréne Brown I have ever read. Rising Strong was easy to read and understand. It was helpful and resourceful. I recommend it to anyone that needs help to find their own path through the hard parts of life.

View all my reviews

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My name is Summer. That is how you can call me. I hope that I am a blessing to you. I am not perfect. I will fall again. But I am forgiven. For anyone reading this that isn’t a Christian, unapologetically, I am a Jesus Follower, but I believe there is room for lots of beliefs and religions in the world. It is not my intent to offend people with different beliefs than I have and I would be open to open-minded conversations with no goals of changing anyone’s mind, but sharing information. If you are interested in becoming a Jesus Follower…Do you know Jesus? Do want the Holy Spirit to fill you and give you understanding and salvation? Ask Him. Want someone to pray with you? Contact me.

If you would like to know Jesus as your friend, but want to make this amazing commitment by yourself please pray something like this: Thank you Jesus that You are the Son of God, the God that created heaven and earth. Thank you Jesus that You came to earth in the form of a man so that You would be able to empathize with my humanity. Thank You that You did this in order to fulfill the promises You made at the foundation of the world. I realize that I am a sinner and do things that hurt myself and keep myself away from you. Thank You that You died for my sins so that You could defeat death and bring me into Your life. Please forgive me. I ask You to be Lord of my life. I ask you to heal my hurts and show me what my new life, empowered by You looks like. Thank You for Your mercy.