The Courage to Care Out Loud
Dispatch #3 from the Human Aliveness lab
This is part of an opening series of dispatches from the Human Aliveness Lab — short, personal reflections exploring what it really means to come alive in a world that often numbs us. If you’re new here, start with Why Aliveness Matters and The Pain of Waking Up.
Hi friends,
This past weekend, I had a jiu-jitsu competition — my first in a while. I haven’t been able to compete much this year, and I was nervous.
Nerves, I know, aren’t a bad thing. Adrenaline sharpens focus and drowns out distractions. Plus, being nervous means you care.
Still, I was out of practice. And as I stepped onto the mat for my first match, shaking my opponent’s hand, I could feel something was off. I was flat. Struggling to focus. My reactions were delayed.
The match didn’t go as planned.
For the past two years, I’ve had the same competition game plan: pull guard, lock it down, hunt for the triangle. (For the non-jiu-jitsu folks, that translates to: control and choke — in other words, stay calm under pressure and finish strong.) But this time, I wanted to experiment. I stayed on top. And because I wasn’t used to that position, I got behind.
I lost the match by two points — while my coach and teammates watched.
I went back to my usual plan for the next match and quickly submitted my opponent. But the first match had already cost me the gold. I left the day feeling embarrassed and frustrated, and I had to stop myself from throwing the bronze medal in the trash on the way out. I was tempted to act like I didn’t care. But the truth is, I cared a lot. And that’s what hurt the most.
That moment — holding a medal I didn’t want, trying to pretend I didn’t care — got me thinking. Not just about losing, but about the cost of putting your heart on the line in public.
It’s one thing to care privately. To write big goals in your journal.
It’s another thing entirely to step into the arena, heart on the line, with people watching — and risk falling short.
Most of us say we want to feel alive. But we forget what aliveness actually requires. It demands presence. It demands risk. It asks us to feel everything — especially the parts we’d rather skip.
Losing is hard. But often, it isn’t the hardest part. Being seen caring — and then losing — is what really stings. And most of us don’t know how to hold that. Not for ourselves. Not for each other.
When I win, my gym is all high fives and congratulations. But when I lose? People go quiet. They mean well — but they don’t know what to say. I get it. I do the same thing. But when I’m the one who loses, part of me wonders if I should have kept the caring to myself.
But maybe we need to think about it differently. Maybe the problem isn’t that we care — it’s that we’ve been taught to hide it.
I’ve always believed in living by example. I don’t trust people who only speak in theory. I want to see what they’re actually willing to put on the line.
And for me, one of the ways I do that is through competition. Not because I always enjoy spending an entire Saturday full of nerves, eating nothing but bananas and protein bars — the only things I can keep down — while trying to keep from getting strangled. But because it’s one concrete way I can put my heart on the line publicly. I can put my words into action. I can show others — and maybe more importantly, myself — that I care, and I’m willing to try.
Maybe it would be one thing if I threw in the towel and gave up jiu-jitsu after a loss. But I never do. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost, and it won’t be the last. Whatever happens, I will keep trying, keep competing, because I know that every match, win or lose, makes me not just a better athlete — but a stronger, braver human.
Still, there’s no question: caring out loud can be terrifying.
There’s a childlike part of most of us that worries: if I try and fail, I’ll be abandoned. I’ll lose love. I’ll lose worth. But what I’ve found — over and over — is that when we try, fail, and try again, something else happens: people see it. They see the heart. The determination. The resilience.
And that gives them permission to show up, too.
That’s the kind of world I want to live in. Not just more alive on my own — but more alive, together.
See you out there,
Krista