Bravery… and then Grace.

written by Bari Tessler December 6, 2013

 Bravery… and then Grace.

(With my work, my voice, my marriage, being a mother, with my health, my body… and my recent thyroid biopsy)

There is Bravery with my work that I bring to the world.

And in growing a business.

Some days this takes center stage.

Going forth and offering a brand-new, year-long program.

Interviewing new folks who have a big audience.  

Visioning, taking the steps and leaps to make it all become REAL.

Traversing known and unknown mountains.

Continually trusting that my gifts/super powers/native genius…

can meet the world and serve in a beautiful way.

It is exciting and scary.

Some days it feels BRAVE…

and some days it feels simply my path.

There is bravery in finding my voice in new and bolder ways.

Exploring areas I have been afraid to mention or talk about.

Inquiring into what I am afraid to say, reveal or be transparent about.

Choosing to go there more often and push my own “limits”.

There is bravery in my marriage.

Moving into our 13th year.

Continuing to be willing to open more and more…

to our intimacy and vulnerability…

and to committing to our creative energy in all its forms.

There is bravery in parenting our boy.

Although being his mama feels so natural to me.

I think the bravery came from changing my mind at 38 years old…

from “not thinking my path was to have a child”…

to realizing that my ONLY next step was to have a child…

a boy named noah.

And, then sat quietly in therapy…

which I rarely do when I want or KNOW something…

while my husband realized what our destiny was.

There has been bravery with my health and body.

The food cleanse I did this year was brave.

Letting go of chocolate for a month, IS BRAVE.

I’ve added it back in, but that’s another story. 🙂

The decision to put on my orange sundress and declare…

to my husband and my midwife…

“We are going to the Fucking hospital”…

after 12 hours of crazily painful home labor…

because I knew in my body that something was not right…

and getting there just in time as my placenta abruption had it’s big moment…

and pulled off my uterine wall, while I hemorrhaged.

And, by the grace of life, our child was born healthy and ALIVE…

There was BRAVERY.

And, my newest bravery…

comes from being willing to get a biopsy on my thyroid…

after nodules appeared on my thyroid/throat in my 44th year…

And trust the doctor to put on the local anesthesia on my throat…

and stick the needles in the exact right spot-the nodule on my thyroid (in my neck)

while moving the needles up and down…(which felt like jabbing or sewing)…

to grab samples of cells for 6 consecutive rounds of inserting, sewing and pulling out the needle.

And, then GRACE…

The grace came from my husband being by my side during the biopsy.

The grace came from the doctor gently rubbing my head.

The grace came from going home to our beautiful boy,

lighting hanukkah candles, singing the blessings of light…

hugging them both tight…

and my husband capturing this gorgeous moment of us in this photo.

family-ritual-2

And, then more bravery in waiting 3 days for the results…

while I continued my work and mothering.

The nurse just called with the news.

It’s Thursday, December 4th. 10:13 a.m.

My thyroid nodule is BENIGN.

I have tears.

and some numbness.

This is what I believed to be true.

But you never know.

And, so I have more LIFE to LIVE.

I am HUMBLED.

And, ready.

Bravery…
and then Grace.

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