Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

According to Brown, when individuals brave the wilderness, they are asked to clarify their beliefs, opinions, and actions even if their families and tribes do not agree with or understand the motivations behind their actions. Braving the wilderness requires courage in part because it asks individuals to go against the crowd and, in some cases, to go against their own crowd. Brown uses the metaphor of the wilderness to convey both the risk and the reward that come when individuals step out into the unknown.

In her previous work Daring Greatly, Brown references the following quote by President Theodore Roosevelt:

It’s not the critic who counts […] The credit belongs to the person in the arena. Whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly […] who at the best knows in the end the high triumph of achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly (Brown, Brené́. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Penguin Books Ltd, 2015).

In this context, Theodore Roosevelt exemplifies an individual who quite literally braves the wilderness.