This inspirational talk by Glennon Doyle Melton, founder of Momastery and bestselling author of Carry On Warrior, sparked a beautiful conversation this afternoon in my weekly Inner Peace Group.

Participants were inspired by her ability to understand the highs and lows of each day and her empowering attitude to show up even though life can be both brutal and beautiful.  As Glennon likes to say, “it’s brutiful.”  We discussed the courage to feel emotions and the strength it takes to get through the day.  The challenges we face to choose to show up and be present with difficult emotions instead of numbing them out with drugs and alcohol.

“Life is brutal. But it’s also beautiful. Brutiful, I call it. Life’s brutal and beautiful are woven together so tightly that they can’t be separated. Reject the brutal, reject the beauty. So now I embrace both, and I live well and hard and real.” – Glennon

We spoke about the wisdom in understanding that life isn’t always easy, and how having a spiritual connection with a higher power aids us in getting through challenging situations and strong emotions that naturally occur in our lives.

We discussed that perhaps it’s not about running away from these strong emotions but choosing how to handle them and how to continue to live our lives through them.

Glennon speaks about helping others through being transparent and living in the open with our flaws and imperfections, about choosing hope and realness instead of trying to be a superhero.

We agreed, it takes courage to be open and vulnerable with the world, but it’s worth it.

Here is the TED Talk- Lessons From The Mental Hospital:

P.S. Her website and Blog can be found at www.momastery.com