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Braver/Wiser: Courage and Compassion for Life as It Is

Life is full of hard edges and complicated choices. Braver/Wiser gives you weekly message of courage and compassion for life as it is. Every Wednesday we deliver an original written reflection and brief prayer, grounded in Unitarian Universalism. Join the Braver/Wiser community and sign up today!

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Displaying 1 - 20 of 27

  • A person with white skin holds, in their upturned palms, a strand of help. Beneath their hands we see the person's feet standing on sand.
    This is my favorite thing about seaweed: it feels so much like my neurodiverse brain.
    Reflection | By Quinn Gormley | March 20, 2024 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Direct Experience, Earth-Centered, Honesty, Imagination, Nature, Personal Stories, Self-Care, Worship
  • A table full of friends raises their glasses--colored glass goblets--in the air outdoors.
    What “toast, boast, and oath” might you offer this January?
    Reflection | By Sarah Klinger Osborne | January 3, 2024 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Beginnings, Choice, Contemplation, Integrity, New Year, Searching, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Worship
  • In a dance studio, a woman in a red tank top dances ethusiastically while other dancers are visible in the background.
    Embodying all of me is the best way I know to love the world.
    Reflection | By Laura Solomon | October 11, 2023 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Body, Growth, Limitations, Self-Care, Worship
  • A Black woman in athletic clothing is in child's pose on a yoga mat: arms stretched forward, head bowing, kneeling back towards her heels.
    Spirit and Breath, create an openness that violence has constricted.
    Reflection | By Melissa Jeter | October 4, 2023 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, Anger, Body, Earth, Healing, Race/Ethnicity, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Worship
  • A pink placard reading "Don't take away my birth control" taken at a Planned Parenthood Rally in New York City. In the background, the stonework of a courthouse is visible.
    As sacred beings, we hold the wisdom to know what is best for our own selves.
    Reflection | By Deborah Weiner | January 11, 2023 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Activism, Body, Choice, Self-Care, Solidarity, Unitarian Universalism, Unitarianism, Women, Reproductive Justice, Worship
  • A photo, from above, of a Black mother with daughter lying down on cozy couch in living room, cuddling and napping together at home.
    If I want well-being to be my truth, I must reclaim and protect it.
    Reflection | By Atena O. Danner | January 26, 2022 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Anti-Oppression, Body, Limitations, Self-Care, Worship
  • A person holds their palm to the camera, obscuring their face. Their palm is painted with streaks of bright paint in yellows, reds, and blues.
    My God lives in the margins and witnesses to the broken-hearted.
    Reflection | By Jami Yandle | September 8, 2021 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Acceptance, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Worship
  • A hand with red nail polish cups a compass, above the mossy floor of a forest, and the other hand points to moss or another object on the ground.
    My inner compass reminds me of the power we’ve been given to create a new future.
    Reflection | By Mariela Pérez-Simons | July 14, 2021 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Earth, Earth-Centered, Imagination, Limitations, Nature, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Worship
  • Sitting cross-legged on a bed, a person holds a guitar and appears to sing. Next to them is a musical keyboard and an open laptop.
    I experience the creative impulse as living just under the surface of the daily grind: tugging; imploring, When do we all get to sing together again?
    Reflection | By Erin J. Walter | January 6, 2021 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: #COVID19, Arts & Music, Creativity, Direct Experience, Humanism, Prophetic Words & Deeds, Self-Care, Worship
  • a dark-skinned woman’s portrait blends into dissolving colourful paint
    Learning to love all of me—including the parts I used to be scared of—made the fear go away.
    Reflection | By Ndidi Achebe | October 28, 2020 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: #BlackLivesMatter, Family, Mental Health, Race/Ethnicity, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Worship
  • A pair of muddy arms reaches up to push a muddy foot, as if helping someone climb a wall.
    Years ago, I did one of those mud run obstacle races. There were eight physical obstacles on the course, but my biggest learning was that we all had a ninth obstacle.
    Reflection | By Laura Solomon | March 18, 2020 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: #COVID19, Community, Compassion, Disaster or Crisis, Fear, Relationships, Self-Care
  • Seen from above, in light cast only by flames, a solitary person swings two "poi" fire weights on chains (sometimes called "fire juggling")
    We all have our foibles; pieces of ourselves that we both admire and occasionally revile. These gifts and struggles exist in tandem.
    Reflection | By Alix Klingenberg | March 4, 2020 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Acceptance, Body, Compassion, Direct Experience, Discernment, Self-Care, Self-Respect
  • A mother bear with three bear cubs, on a river bank.
    The crisis was an opportunity to learn to be fully me and love it, inner turmoil and all. I learned that strength comes from authenticity, never from perfection.
    Reflection | By Tomo Hillbo | November 27, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Brokenness, Conscience, Direct Experience, Family, Grief, Healing, Love, Mothers, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Vulnerability
  • Against a brilliant sunset, a person in silhouette appears to punch the sun.
    I was made this way, in this body and this skin. Like all beings, I have an inherent good that cannot be eclipsed.
    Reflection | By Katie Romano Griffin | November 20, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), Courage, Direct Experience, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Worth
  • A time-lapse photo showing graceful, dance-like movements of a person against a black background
    We can be cheerleaders for simple joys (even when we don't share them) and compassionate about the fact that we’re all just trying to survive.
    Reflection | By Erika Hewitt | November 6, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Arrogance, Beauty, Direct Experience, Discernment, Humanism, Joy, Secular, Self-Care, Self-Respect
  • Two hands pull toilet paper from a wall-mounted dispenser.
    Sometimes people show up fully and be with me. And sometimes they cannot, even if they really care about me and want to help.
    Reflection | By Misha Sanders | April 10, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Caring, Limitations, Self-Care, Self-Respect
  • Six Double Stuf Oreos stacked up, appetizingly, next to a glass of milk
    I saw a woman surrounded by the pressures to conform to adulthood, being the adult she always wanted to be when she was a child. She was as God made her, not who everyone else wanted her to be.
    Reflection | By Nathan Ryan | March 20, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Body, Children, Direct Experience, God, Self-Care, Self-Respect, Women
  • A small button, leaning against a rock, that says "you are beautiful"
    It is deeply spiritual work to learn to treat ourselves with compassion; to learn to see ourselves, if only in moments, the same way we look at something or someone we find beautiful: a newborn baby, the ocean, a sunset.
    Reflection | By Elea Kemler | February 13, 2019 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), Acceptance, Beauty, Body, Caring, Compassion, Direct Experience, Integrity, Love, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-Respect
  • A young child curled up on a couch, her head buried in her hands
    In real life, sometimes grief looms largest in December. Sometimes there's one too many dress-ups and the gold tulle makes your legs itch. “I just needed it to stop for a minute. Next time I will take calm breaths.”
    Reflection | By Misha Sanders | December 19, 2018 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: Advent, Children, Christmas Eve / Christmas, Direct Experience, Limitations, Self-Care, Self-Respect
  • In a dark room, a circle of blurred people holding hands while also holding candles.
    I trusted the woman at the pharmacy to be capable of hearing hard truth. Bless her wounded heart with its internalized misogyny. She just wants women to love and support each other. Thank you. Me too.
    Reflection | By Misha Sanders | September 26, 2018 | From Braver/Wiser
    Tagged as: 1st Principle (Worth & Dignity), 2nd Principle (Justice, Equity, & Compassion), 3rd Principle (Acceptance & Spiritual Growth), 4th Principle (Truth & Meaning), Anger, Anti-Oppression, Body, Direct Experience, Fat Liberation, Men, Mothers, Self-Care, Violence, Women
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