These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.

Welcome to the show. Glad you are here. Somebody wrote to me a while back and said,

I used to write a newsletter under a pseudonym until recently.

I think they did it for their organization or their company.

And it was the only way I could finally be known.

And they said, I appreciate the grit that you have to tell your story.

So they were thanking me for helping them get to that space.

At least that's how I interpret this message.

They wrote, I appreciate the grit that you have to tell your story. And this is what I want to talk about. They said, I wonder how you came into such bravery. And then they wrote, I guess your

podcast says it all.

Thank you for writing that, the person who wrote.

I want to talk about bravery.

I talked about courage just recently, but bravery in the sense of getting to a point where I felt comfortable being myself, I didn't consider that bravery. I considered that dealing with the consequences of my actions and taking the risk knowing there would probably be consequences.

And that, somebody might call it bravery. I call that taking risks.

And the difference is, and I think it's an important difference, the difference between bravery and taking risks, I mean, some people might see it as the same thing, but I see it as bravery is standing tall and being okay with what happens.

And then taking risks is maybe standing tall,

but knowing that you could probably be hurt and not being okay with what happens,

but hoping things go well.

So, yes, there was a level of bravery or courage in the decisions that I've made in life. And if you've been listening for a long time, you probably heard a lot of my stories.

But if this is your first time, I'm sharing this because I talk about personal boundaries and how

you honor those and how I've been honoring them for years and how I learned to honor my personal

boundaries and how I learned to live authentically. And I share all of that

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