(photo by andrea scher)
last week when the lovebombers gathered, katherine painted words + phrases on our bodies -talk about a powerful exercise. the words and phrases we chose were delicate, yet powerful tellings of our stories and of our spirits. when it was my turn to get painted, i had trouble choosing a word, or a sentence. my mind, perhaps a little too bouncy from all the excitement of the weekend, couldn’t settle. just as i was about to give up, one of the girls yelled out “brave in love, kelly rae, brave in love.” and then it was settled.
brave in sadness, brave in love entered my life last summer when andrea led the lovebombers through a truly transformative exercise that helped each of us define our core values – the essence of who we are and what we want to invite more of into our lives. by the end of the exercise, what came through loud and clear for me were these words: i wanted to live my life brave in sadness, brave in love.
to me, brave in sadness means sitting with our tender spots and vulnerabilities. it means facing the direction of our fear and inching our way through it to the other side. it means expressing our broken pieces with absolute courage, whether in writing, conversation, or art. it means seeing the light of possibility in our disappointments. it means giving our sadness a rightful voice, listening to it, and allowing it to birth experiences we need in our lives.
(photo by karen walrond)
on the flipside, brave in love means courageously, and without apology, celebrating our successes, our love, our creativity, our joys + discoveries. it means telling our stories of dreams come true without downplaying the goodness or dimming our lights. it’s recognizing that love is what matters the most and what carries us through in life and in work. it’s being fearless in the pursuit of beauty, community, soul.
this last year, more than ever, i’m learning the gifts of being brave in love, and it was such a important part of my journey to have it written on my heart. thank you katherine. it was a powerful gift.
Hi Kelly Rae,
I am reading Taking Flight and was directed over to this post from the chapter on Facing Our Fears. I am enjoying it very much and getting so much out of it. Thank you for everything. I loved this Blog post too. I followed every link to learn about these other women (which I loved as well). But I have a question. I wanted to know who are the lovebombers? I know this post is older but are they still around? Thanks!