What is Wholehearted Rebellion?

For weeks I played around with different names for my blog. Most were already taken; the others just didn't feel right. The phrase "counterculture" is appealing to me and appropriate for what I want to write about, yet I worried it could be divisive. Eventually I came up with a title I could live with. One morning, as I exercised in my living room, I stared ahead at the Buddha statue on my mantel and mulled over the title I had decided on. Suddenly, a slightly different blog name came to me: Wholehearted Rebellion. Buddha had graciously pointed the way.

Brene Brown, Ph.D., LMSW is a shame and empathy researcher who has written three remarkable books on her findings. She uses the word Wholehearted to describe people "who are resilient to shame and believe in their worthiness." In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brown defined ten "guideposts" for Wholehearted Living.

 1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
 2. Cultivating Self‐Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism

 3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness

 4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark

 5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty

 6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison

 7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self‐Worth

8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle

9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self‐Doubt and “Supposed To”

10.Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and “Always in Control”

In a nutshell, Brown states that, "Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness." 

American society and the powers-that-be tell us what to look like, what to wear, what to buy, what to think and what to be. Marketers purposely make us feel unworthy so that we will go out and buy their products in order to feel better about ourselves. We buy into these toxic messages, adopt them as our own beliefs and perpetuate them among our communities. How could we possibly be happy living in this state of affairs? It's time for mass rebellion. 

Americans in general view rebellion negatively. We grumble and moan about the rebellious teenager and downright dislike and disapprove of the rebellious adult. Rebellion smacks of counterculture. In our society, we are expected to get in line and keep quiet. 

I propose we step out of line and speak up about the insidious messages we hear on a daily basis. This is not the kind of rebellion to be scared of. This is not anarchy. This is healthy defiance of social norms that are hurting us. Our tools are the ten guideposts of Wholehearted Living, courage and our voice. This is wholehearted rebellion.