Showing Up

Definition

Showing up means choosing to be present with your difficult emotions and experiences, acknowledging them fully, and allowing yourself to feel them without immediately trying to solve, suppress, or escape them. It is the inverse of all the ways we typically "cope" with discomfort — avoiding situations, numbing out, staying busy, or telling ourselves we "should" get over it. The metaphor is literal: you show up to grief, anxiety, shame, loss — you don't pretend it's not there, and you don't run.

In the Book

David illustrates showing up through the story of Theresa, who had a miscarriage in her mid-forties and was told she could never conceive naturally again. Rather than sitting with the loss, Theresa told herself she should get over it, that women miscarry all the time, that it was her own fault for waiting too late. She chastised herself for not being grateful for her other blessings. This "productive" self-criticism made the grief worse, not better. What she needed — and eventually did — was to show up: to acknowledge the true extent of her grief, say goodbye to the child she'd lost, honor that life that would never be, and then fully experience whatever she was feeling. This didn't mean she'd be happy about her loss or "get over" it quickly. But by confronting it and embracing every stage of the sorrow, she could move through it rather than being stuck.

David contrasts showing up with the cultural mandate to "stay positive" and power through. She describes how one study found that participants who spent time on positive fantasies (imagining they'd completed a weight-loss program) actually lost fewer pounds than those who spent time thinking realistically about obstacles — because the positive fantasy let the air out of motivation. Showing up means being willing to feel the full weight of a situation, which paradoxically frees you to move through it.

The practice of showing up also requires what David calls a "nuanced emotional vocabulary." She tells the story of Thomas, a man living on the streets who, when asked how he was feeling, would always say "just a little bit of bother" — whether describing severe anxiety, homelessness, or his mother's death. Without words for his emotions, he couldn't make sense of them or get the help he needed. Showing up requires naming what you're experiencing: not just "stressed," but is it disappointment, grief, fear, anger?

Why It Matters

This concept inverts the cultural instinct to "manage" or "overcome" emotion. It suggests that the path through difficulty is acceptance, not resistance. Showing up allows us to move through trauma, grief, and failure rather than getting stuck in them. It also reframes willingness — the courage to feel difficult things — as the cornerstone of emotional agility, not weakness.