Brit Barron - Worth It: Overcome Your Fears and Embrace the Life You Were Made For

Overcome Your Fears and Embrace the Life You Were Made For

Brit Barron

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

WORTH IT

Overcome Your Fears and Embrace the Life You Were Made For

Copyright 2020 Brit Barron. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email copyright@1517.media or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Cover image: Jorge Macias

Cover design: Sami Lane

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-6327-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-6328-5

To my sweet Sami: thank you for being the mirror I needed to truly see myself and to see what is good and pure and true.

To our parents and those family and friends who chose to walk this journey with us: thank you for choosing growth over comfort, freedom over fear, and love over everything else. Without you, we would not have come this far.

The first time I ever saw Beans (yes, Brit Barron is the author of this book, but most of us refer to her as Beansdont worry, you will too by the end of the read), she was preaching. I learned some important things about her that day at church, which I feel duty-bound to share with you now.

First of all, Beans is a ridiculously talented communicator. She has this skill of taking topics that seem nearly impossible to understand and breaking them down in a way that anyone can grasp. Shes funny and thoughtful and wise and you dont need to take my word for itjust keep reading and youll get it just like I did on that sunny summer Sunday all those years ago.

The second thing you need to know about Beans is that once you interact with her (even just through the pages of this book) you will want to be real-life best friends with her. I know this is true because on that day years ago the first thing I thought was, Wow, this girl is so cool! That thought was followed almost immediately by a desire be awesome enough to be friends with the cool girl. For real. Beans brings out the aspiring middle schooler in nearly every woman she meets. Yet, as confident and effortlessly fly as she is, she never once makes you feel like youre an outsider even if she just met you eleven seconds ago.

I walked over to her after church that day and introduced myself, and it hasnt struck me until just this moment how utterly unlikely it is that she and I would eventually become the dearest of friends. Im a mother of four with extensions on my nails, hair, and lashes. She rocks Vans and T-shirts and the last time she wore makeup (just a little lipstick) she did it as a joke and still spent the rest of the day worried that she looked too intense. I am a hardcore enneagram number three (that means achiever if you dont speak enneagram) who can barely look at any situation without trying to attach a goal to it and fight for traction. Beans is an enthusiastic seven who finds positivity in literally every situation and who told me once: I want to make just enough money to survive so I can spend the rest of my time hanging out with Sami

That statement still haunts me to this day.

I really like making out with my husband Dave. Beans spent the first two years of our friendship talking about her really good girl friend Sami. She is African American and Mexican American and Im a white girl from hillbilly stock. We are extremely different people on the surface but were utterly in tune with our values. The core values of our friendship circle include but are not limited to: Beyonc, happy hour, group tattoos, the power of a good hat, the power of a good meal, showing up authentically, vacations, and a really, really intense devotion to vision-casting our futures in beautiful locations.

No, I am not making that last one upits a real thing.

Ive learned over time that it doesnt matter how unlike two people are; if you hold core beliefs sacred you can always build a beautiful relationship. One of the greatest shared beliefs in our circle of friends (beyond Moscow mules at happy hour) is simply this: You are enough as you are. You are worthy. You are worth the effort. You are worth fighting for!

And so were clear, I dont mean that youre worth a partner fighting for you romantically (though thats certainly true and a dreamy thought). In this instance Im not talking about your worth in relation to anyone else. I mean that you, the real you, deserve to live your truth, even if it means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Beans will talk about that a lot in the coming pages, and while I know shell tell you this truth I want you to hear it from me, her friend, so you know that its true: Beans becoming who she is cost her.

There was a price to her truth.

It cost her jobs, her church, her community, her safety, and her security, and revealed the sad reality that some people who claim to love you the most only deal in conditional love.

When Beans tells you that its hard live your freedom, believe her.

When she tells you that its worth itthat youre worth itbelieve that too.

Recently at one of our RISE conferences (of which Beans has been my partner in crime since the beginning) a young woman came up to me in the picture line.

I have a secret, she blurted out. Its something Ive never said to anyone but I saw Beans speak today and you keep saying we should be ourselves and I just want someone to know. Can I tell you my secret? She was giddy and nervous and believe it or not, I get this kind of thing a lot. Of course, I told her.

She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye.

Im... She let it draw out for a few seconds as if finding the courage to leap. Im totally gay. She finished the rest in a rush so fast I could hardly make out the words. And Im going to go home and Im going to tell my family and its fine, right Rach? I mean, my family definitely wont disown me, right? And it will be okay and my whole world wont crumble, right?

Ill tell you what I told that sweet young woman that day. The truth is, I dont know if it will be all right. I dont know how your family or your friends or your community will react to your honesty. Living authentically is not for the faint of heart.

The truth is, you might be attacked when you stop apologizing for who you are, be it a queer college student, or an ambitious mama, or an affirming pastor, or a person of color fighting through the injustice of a broken system. You might be attacked because your freedom will remind others that theyre still in chains. But a life lived only in pursuit of other peoples approval is a life wasted.

Dont back down.

I dont believe it will be easy to claim who you are, but I know it will be worth it.

xo, Rach

Rachel Hollis, author of Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing

For the first thirty-two years of my life, I never experienced what a sunburn felt like. The magic of melanin makes it possible for black people to consistently evade this sun-based pain, but a few years ago, I really pushed the limits too far. One of my best friends from college is the kind of person whose birthday requires extravagance every year (shes wonderful in that way), so for this particular birthday, we took a red-eye from Los Angeles to Miami. We planned to spend two whirlwind days dancing our hearts out and relaxing on the beach. But you know the problem with a red-eye? You land hours before you can check into your hotel.