Wise Bravery
I've been thinking about our last Ebb & Haven virtual meet-up, where we talked about wise bravery.
It came off the back of a series of conversations about the wobble: how women come to feel secure, and the constant interplay between what happens inside us and what happens around us. (If you haven't read Parts One and Two, you'll find them on the blog.)
I think about bravery a lot. This week in particular, when I look at the media and the world around us, and think about women in leadership and women's security, I've never felt more called to ask: what does wise bravery look like?
We all need it, women and men alike. But for women, it looks different. It feels different.
Many of our organisations are built on structures, systems and rules that were largely written by and for men. Women continue to navigate them, often with remarkable skill. So, the question becomes how we navigate them with brave wisdom.
This week I want to take that question further, with a lump in my throat, into the everyday.
Every day we walk down a street. And every day, many of us choose which street, what time of day, and who we walk with.
Our meet-up wasn't about that. But I can't help drawing the connection.
Why do we still have to think so carefully about when we can be brave, and when we should choose not to?
All that careful thinking has a cost. Bravery isn't only a feeling. It's an act, and acts take energy. It lives in our nervous system, and our nervous system brings its own history.
Having the same conversation again and again is exhausting: adjusting, anticipating, choosing our words for other people's comfort. Same conversation, different context. I think we need to call that exhaustion what it is. It isn't a failure of resilience. It's a burden. And it isn't shared evenly.
For many of us, being brave has real consequences: personal, professional, and sometimes physical. That's exactly why wisdom matters. And it's exactly why bravery shouldn't have to cost so much.
That leaves me curious about something we often take for granted. In leadership development we talk about adaptive capacity, and we tend to assume that when we step into bravery, we grow into larger, more capable selves. Sometimes we do, especially when our bravery is recognised. But when it goes unrewarded, time after time, or worse, when it's punished or silenced, I wonder whether we quietly contract instead. We become a little smaller, a little more careful, and a little more tired.
So what makes the difference?
I don't think it's simply trying harder. There's so much to learn here, but one thing kept coming up in our Ebb & Haven dialogue: not doing it alone.
For a long time, women haven't had many role models who showed us how to lead on our own terms. Many who went before us had to adopt and adapt to ways of being that weren't necessarily their own. So perhaps the wisdom we're looking for isn't only something we inherit. Perhaps it's something we create together: in community, in conversation, by listening deeply enough to change.
If wisdom can be co-created, it can also be harnessed. And collective wisdom might be exactly what helps bravery grow us rather than shrink us.
So what might wise bravery ask of us?
Presence. Reading the moment, the context and ourselves.
Knowing the rules. Learning from those who have navigated our systems for decades.
Seeing them fresh. Learning from those new to the rules, who are willing to bend or break them.
Learning together. Across generations and difference, with no one persona is cast as the "wise one."
Listening. Enough to let it change what we were about to say.
Compassion and recovery. Being kind to ourselves when things don't go right, because sometimes they won't.
So I'll leave you with the questions I'm sitting with:
Where has bravery grown you, and where has it made you smaller? Where is your caution genuinely wise, and where is it a rule you've outgrown? Who are you co-creating wisdom with? And what would it take for bravery to cost us less?
With warmth, Sheree
I want to acknowledge the source of inspiration, reflections and the motivation to capture them in written musings comes from the wise, brave and wonderful Ebb & Haven Community.
