Fierce Joy. Susie Caldwell Rinehart

      I realize that I haven’t seen many women go by. Maybe I’m doing better than I think. I turn and run downhill, but my legs feel like jello. I’m not sure my muscles can last much longer at this altitude. Still, I notice that if I lean forward, like I am daring the mountain to knock me down, my legs find strength under me. I run by feeling, not thinking. I feel brave. I feel indomitable.

      I see our kids not far from the finish line. Cole and Hazel jump up and down, shouting, “You can do it, Mama!” Then they run alongside me in their little sandals. We cross the line together. I end up finishing as the first woman in the masters division, a competitive age group in Boulder, Colorado. I am shocked and elated. There were many moments in the race when I wanted to quit because I was convinced I was doing so poorly. Turns out, that was all in my mind. How many times have I been doing well in my life and just assumed that I was failing?

      I lie down in the rushing creek and Kurt brings me a beer. I tell him about how I dedicated the hardest section to him, and he chuckles. He can’t help but make a joke. He pretends to be me, and quips: “Let me see, who makes my life really difficult and yet I endure anyway? I know! Kurt!” It feels good to sit side-by-side with him in the river, laughing. We let the current wash over us, and we link arms to hold steady against its pull. Together, we make a good anchor.

      Thirty-one miles. Twenty-seven creek crossings. Two serious mountain passes. All behind me now. I feel alive, vigorous, and capable of anything.

      Two weeks later, I learn that I have between three and five months to live.

      The Opposite of Joy is Perfectionism

      We are born with only two fears: the fears of falling and of loud noises. As we grow, our fears grow too. We worry about what we might lose instead of what we might gain. We don’t think of ourselves as perfectionists, but we’re scared to try things that don’t guarantee us a positive outcome. As Brené Brown writes in Dare to Lead, “Healthy striving is self-focused. How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused: What will people think? Perfectionism is a hustle.” The good news is that once we identify our kind of perfectionism, and see it as a lousy shield between us and the world, we can drop it. It helps to remember that our innate selves are brave. When we take risks, we actually start to feel more like ourselves.

      To stem the tide of perfectionism and the anxious feelings that go with it:

      • Remember when you were ten years old. What did you love to do? Let those memories inform your true comfort zone and develop a mindset of being born brave.

      • Flip (off) the inner critic. By flipping each negative thought to a positive one, we can catch those unkind thoughts faster, recover quicker, and spin out less often. “I’m not doing enough” becomes “I am enough.” “My body is too heavy” becomes “My thoughts are heavy; I am light.”

      • Make risk-taking so normal, it is boring. Take risks early and often. Take your writing public. Say no to someone powerful. Try a new skill. Share your true feelings about something. Face conflict. Notice how the ground doesn’t fall away.

      • Feel the fear and do it anyway. I believe that we are capable of so much more than we think. But we’re scared as sh** sometimes. Fear is just part of the process of doing something new. We need to feel it, drop stories attached to it, and step through it.

      • Notice how far you’ve come, not where everyone else is standing. A life of comparing and competing has consequences. Instead of making us stronger, it can cause us to feel anxious. I love when writer Anne Lamott says, “Never compare your insides with everyone else’s outsides.” Take the long view; trust that you are exactly where you need to be now, becoming who you are meant to be, at your own pace.

      • Keep a record of moments when you survived discomfort. Maybe you remember the soreness you felt when you first got braces. Or the devastation you felt when your first love dissolved. Return to what helped you get through tough times to remember your inner resiliency.

      • Build a community that celebrates progress, not perfectionism. Ask yourself, then your colleagues and friends, “Where did you make progress today?” instead of “What did you get done today?” Host “no-talent” shows and “story slams,” where people are invited to share stories that don’t leave out the struggle and failure. Celebrate persistence, vulnerability, and contributions to the common good, not merely accomplishments.

      6

      “First, you’ll lose your voice. Then your ability to breathe,” says Dr. Levin, lifting his glasses to the top of his head to look at me and Kurt directly. He says these words in the same matter-of-fact tone that a waiter might say, “First your salad will arrive. Then you’ll get your steak.” He takes a plastic model of a skull down from a shelf in the cramped examination room and points at its waxy yellow bones and purple plastic arteries, giving a lecture on the brainstem’s function. I recognize that it is a human skull, but I have no idea what he is saying. My mind drifts to my heart. Is it beating? Then to my lungs. Can I still take a breath?

      How did I get here? Two weeks after running the ultramarathon, I wake up with a bad headache. I am not surprised. I am used to this throbbing discomfort, and I was also up late with girlfriends, drinking wine. But this feels sharper than the dull fogginess of a hangover. And it’s accompanied by an electric pain radiating down my right arm. I have not felt this before. I manage to drive the kids to their summer day camps. On the way home, while stopped at a traffic light, I suddenly feel nauseated. I open the car door and throw up on the white line in the middle of the road. Something is not right, but I have no idea what is wrong. I wipe my mouth, drive home, and call my friend Sarah. She offers to take me to the doctor. Dr. Pedersen orders a new round of MRIs of my head and neck, and that’s how I end up in this neurosurgeon’s office.

      “We can’t know what kind of tumor this is for sure until we get a piece of it, but it’s rare and aggressive. It has wrapped itself like a boa constrictor around your brainstem. The brainstem controls your heart, your lungs, everything you need to survive,” says Dr. Levin.