After several months of infusing my commute with more motivational and empowering content, I was getting kind of bored with it. Maybe bored is not the right word - maybe I was more frustrated with my own unwillingness to do anything with it other than absorb it in the car on my way to and from work. I was already gaining back the weight I had lost. Maybe I was just kind of a loser after all, I would think. Maybe I don't have what it takes to make some big, meaningful changes in my life. After all, I need my job. I'm going to find a new one that is less stressful but pays better? Yeah, right. What are we going to do - just not pay our bills? It's time for a reality check, sister.
But then, after winter (or as I call it, "the long gray suck") passed, things started looking up again. I got back into it again. Eventually, from one of Rachel's podcasts, I discovered Alison Faulkner and her podcast, "Awesome with Alison." Even though that podcast didn't become one of my staples, it was important in my journey because it pointed me in a couple new directions.
First, in the first Awesome with Alison episode I happened to listen to, Alison described and praised The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown on Audible. I had not previously read Brene Brown, but I had heard of her and was meaning to check her out. I downloaded that book (actually, it's more of a recorded lecture) on Audible and LOVED it. This also introduced me to the idea of adding audio books to my repertoire (if you're gathering that maybe I'm slow to adopt new technology, you may not be wrong).
After that, I became slightly Brene Brown obsessed for a period of time. It turns out that not only did my local library have several of her books available on CD, but my car also happened to have a CD player that I wasn't even putting to good use! So, I checked them out and listened to Brene Brown for days on end. I personally highly recommend any of her books but I think I'm still partial to The Power of Vulnerability (or she's got a Netflix special now - The Call to Courage - if you're intrigued and not a reader/audiobooker). I will add this disclaimer, though: I studied Speech Communication in college. I didn't end up there until my junior year, after a couple other failed majors. My very favorite classes were in interpersonal communication, but at the time I was convinced there was nothing I could do with that without going for a Masters, which I was also convinced I wouldn't get accepted to, and even if I was, there was no way I could afford it. And even if I could get accepted and find a way to pay for it, my parents would want to know what I planned to do with a degree like that, and I wouldn't know what to tell them, exactly, except that it intrigued me and I wanted to explore it further. Brene Brown, and all her books, teachings, etc., could easily be part of the curriculum for a Masters in Speech Communication. This is my jam. I didn't even really remember that this was my jam. Finding her reminded me of an interest I had in the past that I totally quashed because I convinced myself it was something only other people could do, but not me. It seemed that maybe this was a recurring theme in my life.
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