Hustle. Yep there it was, just waiting as Monday began. Hustle was all over the roads driving on them as the sun rose over the hills. Hustle was there inviting itself into my parenting. Hustle was in the car park. Hustle was at the checkout in the Cafe. Hustle tried to catch a lift back with me to work.
Hustle. We all know it. We all experience it.
WHAT IS HUSTLE?
What we are discovering with research is that hustle is the outworking of our fear and inadequacy onto others.
We live in cultures that really are having an emotional conversation. The conversation is around our value and dignity as human beings and this conversation has some significant drivers. Inadequacy and fear.
Are we enough… not only for our functions, but for the greater things that really change the world like love and belonging?
I have watched over the years fear change us. Change our families, change our communities, change our nations.
Fear is accompanied with other words now. Infact they are more commonly spoken than the word fear. Words like hustle, anxiety… terror. I have seen for the first time in my lifetime acts of terrorism in my own city. It is no longer confined to London, Israel or Paris.
Dr Brene Brown defined terrorism as “time-released fear. It embeds fear so deeply in the heart of a community that makes fear become a way of life. This unconscious way of living then fuels so much anger and blame that people start to turn on one another.”1.
Participants in a recent research expressed a growing “concern that the only thing that binds us together now is shared fear and disdain, not common humanity, shared trust, respect, or love. People report feeling more afraid to disagree or debate with friends, colleagues and family because of the lack of civility and tolerance.”2.
Fear has become the dominate emotional driver of so many of our cultures and relationships, and by and large we even don’t recognise it!
HOW CAN WE DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN HUSTLE?
What we don’t lean into, we can’t move through. When we do this, we become defined by it and it owns us.
Fear intimidates our humanity and our divinity.
So in this atmosphere of heightened fear, we evidence society reaching for anger and hate as the go to emotions. When we reach for anger and hate as way to manage fear, we descend down a very dark path of the destruction of human dignity.
Hustle is a sojourner on this path. Hustle is slippery. Hustle is the clever demise of human worth. But when we refuse to hustle, we begin to disempower fear and inadequacy and we give ourselves permission to be human and others permission to be human.
LEARNING TO DO VULNERABILITY BETTER
To be human is to be vulnerable, and I believe that the invitation to us squarely and fairly in this hour is to do vulnerability better. Infact, if we don’t do vulnerability better, the force and unconsciousness of the fear in our nations will drive us only further into loss of dignity and freedom.
If we don’t value vulnerability, we won’t manage fear.
CHOOSE LOVE
When we stop hustling, we stop fear and we let in love. Love casts out fear or fear casts out love (1 John 4:18). They are mortal enemies. They can not co-exist.
God did human. Full human. Philippians 2 says, “He existed in the form of God.. emptied Himself of the OUTER glory by reducing himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human! He humbled himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man..”
God loves human. He took His image and dignity and made human (Isaiah 60:1). God is not afraid of human, nor is He afraid of fear. He honours our humanity and vulnerability (Psalm 103:14). Love is fearless.
We experience worth when we encounter His Presence and worth is a prerequisite for showing up and living courageously in our lives.
The opposite to love is not hate, it is fear. Fear hustles. Love is patient. Fear is a whole bunch of me in focus. Love is sitting with each other not afraid. Fear argues with our self worth. Love says “You are enough.” Fear demands tidy, perfect lives. Love is messy and vulnerable. Fear keeps us small. Love makes us big.
So let me leave you with this question. Do we really think fear is that powerful that we have to be afraid of it?
We can do human better.
- Brene Brown, Speech to the RSA, The Power of Vulnerability, June 2013
- Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness, 2017
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What Others Are Saying
“We had the privilege of having Helen lead a day of Living Courage. It blessed many and was a turning point in identifying what was holding us back in living in full abundance of what God has for us. She helped us to become aware of what is happening in today’s culture and how it can shut us down spiritually and bound us up emotionally. The day was engaging and fun. Helen shares from her own journey, and passionately offers the gold in which she has discovered in her walk with Christ.”
G. DENCH | Leader Women’s Ministry, Planetshakers, Australia