Susie Caldwell Rinehart - Fierce Joy: Choosing Brave over Perfect to Find My True Voice (Slow Down, Enjoy Life, Finding Your Self)

Copyright 2019 Susie Rinehart

Cover & Layout Design: Elina Diaz

Mango is an active supporter of authors rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society. Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the authors intellectual property. Please honor the authors work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our authors rights.

For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:

Mango Publishing Group
2850 Douglas Road, 2nd Floor
Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at or +1.800.509.4887.

Fierce Joy: Choosing Brave over Perfect to Find My True Voice

Library of Congress Cataloging
ISBN: (print) 978-1-63353-988-4 (ebook) 978-1-63353-989-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935680

BISAC category code: SEL021000 SELF-HELP / Motivational & Inspirational

Printed in the United States of America

Praise for Fierce Joy

Breathtaking. Raw. Real. This memoir is about what it means to have a voice. When Susie loses her ability to speak, she learns to listen to herself. Honest and poignant, this book also had me laughing out loud.

Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being Human and founder of The Manifest-Station

This stunning memoir wakes us up to the kind of happiness that is possible when we are brave enough to go after it. At the heart of this big, brilliant story is this: You are already enough. This book is wise and revolutionary. It changed my life.

Christine Carter, author of Raising Happiness and The Sweet Spot

Powerful, honest, riveting. What happens when a crisis forces you to give up perfectionism and self-worth through doing? Susie Rineharts story of survival is a gift to any woman who longs to free herself of the shackles of not-enough.

Rachel Simmons, author of Enough As She Is

After reading an excerpt from this book, I was immediately gripped. This is a powerful book for anyone who struggles with perfectionism. The author reminds us that leading a courageous life means moving forwardeven when you dont feel perfect or completely ready yet.

Alexandra Franzen, author of You Are Going to Survive and So This Is the End

This is a powerful story about a woman daring to fight for a life that is big, buoyant, and brilliant. She shows us that we can live lightly in dark times, if we dare to make space for joy.

Becca Anderson, author of The Book of Awesome Women and Prayers for Hard Times

A fundamental shift in the spiritual journey occurs when we realize the inherent gift that lies in speaking from the heart. In Fierce Joy: Choosing Brave over Perfect to Find My True Voice , Susie Caldwell Rinehart beautifully captures the spiritual freedom in coming to know what she once viewed as vulnerable is actually the most powerful: when we speak from the heart, we are rooted in truthour own truthwhen what we say, what we do and what we believe are in complete harmony. Susies story shows us how to transform pain into heart-centered instructions for living our best life.

Bridgitte Jackson-Buckley, author of The Gift of Crisis

Extraordinary memoir full of hard-won wisdom. This book is about what it means to be human, and what lies beneath our fears if we dare to look.

Brad Wetzler, former editor, Outside magazine

Uplifting and loaded with practical wisdom on how to come out of a crisis with more, not less.

Suleika Jaouad, New York Times Life, Interrupted columnist

This book is dedicated to my parents,

C. Douglas Caldwell & Marilyn French Caldwell

for love, and for encouraging me to put safety third.

Table of Contents

Prelude

August 18, 2016

I lie here after thirty-six hours of brain surgery wondering, Who am I? I am not a wife, not a mother, not a leader, not an athlete. I am a lump in a bed. I cant even help my daughter make breakfast.

I have always identified with the hero role. When I go to the movies, I dont just watch Indiana Jones, I am Indiana Jones. I am Jason Bourne. I am Katniss Everdeen. I am never the one standing by, wringing her hands, waiting for the hero to come. I am out there, in the adventure, making things happen. I have plenty of courage. I get shit done. I start companies and lead schools. I win races. I can push through anything. I am not even sure I am alive unless I am striving to make something happen. But there are consequences to pushing, striving, fixing, saving everything and everyone. Right now, my health is at risk. If I dont find a different way, Ill die.

Before now, I never thought I was a perfectionist. My house is too messy. Perfectionists dont go to the grocery store without makeup, in their giraffe pajamas. But when it comes to the stuff that matters relationships and workI see now that I am a perfectionist. I never believe I am good enough. I judge myself and I judge others. I get stuck looking for the single, right way beyond criticism to success, before even beginning. I loop around the same questions: Am I in the right job? Do we live in the right place? Are the kids in the right schools? I assume that if I do things right, my family will be safe. No one will get hurt. I act as if life is a Sunday crossword puzzle and I have the only pencil. I put so much pressure on myself that I get sick.

This time, my health isnt just telling me to slow down. Its telling me to transform completely.

The trick is my journey feels like the opposite of a heros journey. While the classic hero is called to adventure, I am called to lie down and let go. But like the hero, I resist. Lying down doesnt feel brave. It makes me feel useless. I grew up wanting to make everyone proud of me. How, if not by doing and achieving, do I earn my spot on this beautiful earth? How does anyone?

My husband Kurt comes to check on me. I am propped up in bed in a head bandage to prevent spinal fluid leakage, and a neck brace to protect my skull-to-shoulder fusion from breaking. I am supposed to be sleeping. Instead I am on my phone, searching the internet for a way out of my current situation.

What are you looking for? Kurt asks.

Lindsey Vonns workout schedule, after her knee surgery, I say.

Kurt laughs and asks, Youre just days out of surgery and you want to work out like an Olympic downhill skier?

I am tired of sitting here, doing nothing. Strong people get up and do something to heal faster. They dont just lie here and wait.

Is that true? I bet if Lindsey Vonn had two craniotomies and a neck fusion, shed lie down for a few days.

I am not convinced. The only way I know to get through something difficult is to get back up and push through the pain. I feel like if I just work harder, I can throw off the bed covers, rip off the neck brace, and go home.

In the heros journey, the hero has sword fights and lightsaber battles to fend off bad guys. My battles are internal. I fend off fear and anxiety. I barely move an inch.

Do I deserve to be here if I cant do anything?

#

Lets look back in order to go forward.
It helps to start at the beginning.

#