As I attempt to reach across the partisan divide in my family, I find that I may slip in and out of true integrity in any given conversation; at times I want to surrender, to write off the whole effort as a waste of life energy.
On a tender day, hearing their judgment of my belief systems throws me off center. Whatever the challenge we face—and there are so many these days—realigning ourselves again and again with the heartening, virtuous energies of truth, love, justice and humility, among others, provides the ballast we need to weather the storm. Courage entails not only facing that which we fear, but also taking action, no matter how challenging.
Courage, and the crucible of inner growth leading to action, is forged in times of challenge and in the face of fear. As we all inch toward the precipice of harder times on a warming planet, we will have abundant opportunities to be courageous. Virtues are not often celebrated or spoken of in our popular culture, and there is a veritable vacuum of integrity in many people in positions of power in our world.
We must remember that it is a radical act to take a stand for that which is virtuous. The virtue of temperance, or voluntary self-restraint, applied to the consumption of all things, including news, could transform our collective wellbeing and give us a better chance at living in balance with the Earth. Surely not that of a society whose moral compass prioritises victory over justice — risking your life to support a cause like that is reckless. If courage means fearing dishonour from those who are morally corrupt, then a courageous enemy is worse than a cowardly one.
Courage becomes like a superpower — making some people into heroes and others villains. Even if we do fear death, we have a range of different reasons for doing so.
Perhaps my most visceral fear is of drowning. The thought of it is enough to make me feel short of breath. It was perhaps the first time I really had to come to grips with the fact he was mortal — and so was I — and all that I loved.
Today, I fear death because it would mean never seeing my children grow up. Never holding them one last time. What does it mean to live courageously in a world where all our loves, passions and projects expose us to pain and loss?
To live is to have a nerve constantly exposed to the world — always vulnerable to suffering. The French psychoanalyst and philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle argues that risk is an inherent part of living fully in the world. Risk-free living, she argues, is not living at all. Courage is as much about living despite knowing the exposed nerve of love and passion could trigger chest-tightening pain at any moment.
Yet so often we close ourselves from the world to keep ourselves safe. We self-censor not because we think we might be wrong, but because we fear upsetting the wrong person. We tell ourselves stories in the shower of all the things we could do — could be — if only the world let us.
So much is up to you," she said, calling it "no small matter" to be graduating from Cornell. Taking up the theme of courage, Angelou challenged her audience to try for a week not using any "racial pejoratives," "sexual bashing" terms, or to laugh at others' expense. She assured her listeners that they will like themselves more. She confessed herself to leaving a room when such words are used, because they were created to "dehumanize.
You are literally conditioning yourself to become more timid and mouse-like. Such avoidance behavior causes stagnation in the long run. You begin taking your fears for granted; they become real to you. It wants more, much more. It wants you to become far wealthier, to have an outstanding relationship, to get your body in peak physical condition, to learn new skills, to travel the world, to have lots of wonderful friends, to help people in need, to make a meaningful difference.
That voice frowns at you when you catch a glance of your oversized belly in the mirror or get winded going up a flight of stairs. And if you refuse to listen, it will always be there, nagging you about your mediocre results until you die, full of regrets for what might have been. Maybe drown it out by watching TV, listening to the radio, working long hours at an unfulfilling job, or consuming alcohol and caffeine and sugar.
But whenever you do this, you lower your level of consciousness. You sink closer towards an instinctive animal and move away from becoming a fully conscious human being. You react to life instead of proactively going after your goals. You fall into a state of learned helplessness, where you begin to believe that your goals are no longer possible or practical for you.
You become more and more like a mouse, even trying to convince yourself that life as a mouse might not be so bad after all, since everyone around you seems to be OK with it. You surround yourself with your fellow mice, and on the rare occasions that you encounter a fully conscious human being, it scares the hell out of you to remember how much of your own courage has been lost. The way out of this vicious cycle is to summon your courage and confront that inner voice.
Find a place where you can be alone with pen and paper or computer and keyboard. The voice is just an abstraction — you may not hear words at all; instead you may see what you should be doing or simply feel it emotionally. It may tell you that you always wanted to be an actor or writer, but you settled for a sales job because it seemed more safe and secure.
See if you can reduce that voice to just a single word or two. What is it telling you to do? Move on. Let go. Whatever you get from this, write it down. Perhaps you even have different words for each area of your life. Now you have to take the difficult step of consciously acknowledging that this is what you really want.
You lower your consciousness when you do that. When you look at your overweight body, admit that you really want to be fit and healthy. Get yourself out of denial. You probably still feel paralyzed against taking action. While diving right in and confronting a fear head-on can be very effective, that may require more courage than you feel you can summon right now. The most important point I want you to learn from this article is that real courage is a mental skill, not an emotional one.
Neurologically it means using the thinking neocortex part of your brain to override the emotional limbic impulses. Courage is a learned mental skill that you must condition, just as weight training strengthens your muscles. There are two methods I will suggest for building courage. The first approach is analogous to progressive weight training. Start with weights you can lift but which are challenging for you, and then progressively train up to heavier and heavier weights as you grow stronger.
So tackle your smallest fears first, and progressively train up to bigger and bigger fears. Then number from one to ten, and write out ten variations of this fear, with number one being the least anxiety-producing and number ten being the most anxiety-producing.
This is your fear hierarchy. Number two might be smiling at ten attractive strangers in a single day. Now start by setting a goal to complete number one on your list.
You may need to adjust the items on your list to make them practical for you to actually experience. And if you ever feel the next step is too big, then break it down into additional gradients.
If you can lift pounds but not , then try or even Take this process as gradually as you need to, such that the next step is a mild challenge for you but one you feel fairly confident you can complete. And feel free to repeat a past step multiple times if you find it helpful to prepare you for the next step. Pace yourself. So your feelings of fear will diminish at the same time that your expression of courage grows.
The second approach to building courage is to acquire additional knowledge and skill within the domain of your fear. Confronting fears head-on can be helpful, but if your fear is largely due to ignorance and lack of skill, then you can usually reduce or eliminate the fear with information and training. Spend an afternoon at your local library researching the subject, or do the research online.
Join the local Chamber of Commerce and any relevant trade organizations in your field. Attend conferences. Build connections. Enlist the help of a mentor. This method is especially effective when a large part of your fear is due to the unknown. These two methods are my personal favorites, but there are many additional ways to condition yourself to overcome fear, including neuro-linguistic programming, implosion therapy, systematic desensitization, and self-confrontation.
You can research them via an online search engine if you wish to learn such methods and increase the number of fear-busting tools in your arsenal. Most of these can be easily self-administered implosion therapy is the notable exception. Just as your muscles automatically atrophy from lack of use, so your courage will automatically decay in the absence of conscious conditioning.
Heavy weights can be a physical burden, but they are helpful tools to build strong muscles. Heaviness is your thought, not an intrinsic property of the dumbbell itself. Fear is not your enemy. It is a compass pointing you to the areas where you need to grow. So when you encounter a new fear within yourself, celebrate it as an opportunity for growth, just as you would celebrate reaching a new personal best with strength training. So what do you do with your newly developed courage?
Where will it lead you? The answer is that it will permit you to lead a far more fulfilling and meaningful life. You will truly begin living as a daring human being instead of a timid mouse. You will uncover and develop your greatest talents. You will begin living far more consciously and deliberately than you ever have before. Instead of reacting to events, you will proactively manufacture your own events. Courage is something you can only truly experience alone.
It is a private victory, not a public one. Summoning the courage to listen to your innermost desires is not a group activity and does not result from building a consensus with others. No one on earth has lived through the exact same experiences you have, and no one thinks the exact same thoughts you do. On the one hand, this is a lonely realization. Whether you live alone or enjoy the deepest intimacy with a loving partner, deep down you must still face the reality that your life is yours alone to live.
You can choose to temporarily yield control of your life to others, whether it be to a company, a spouse, or simply to the pressures of daily living, but you can never give away your personal responsibility for the results.
Whether you assume direct and conscious control over your life or merely react to events as they happen to you, you and you alone must bear the consequences. What is the difference between you and one of those legendary historical figures who did have such an impact? You both had many of the same fears. You both were born with talents in some areas and weaknesses in others.
The only thing stopping you is fear, and the only thing that will get you past it is courage. Catching a glimpse of your own greatness can be one of the most unsettling experiences imaginable. And even more disturbing is the awareness of the tremendous challenges that await you if you accept it. Living consciously is not an easy path, but it is a uniquely human experience, and it requires making the committed decision to permanently let go of that mouse within you.
Going after your greatest and most ambitious dreams and experiencing failure and disappointment, running butt up against your most humbling human limitations instead of living with a comfortable padding of potential — these fears are common to us all.
The first few times you encounter such fears, you may quickly retreat back to the illusory security of life as a mouse. But if you keep exercising your courage, you will eventually mature to the point where you can openly accept the challenges and responsibilities of life as a fully conscious human being.
Continuing to live as a mouse will simply hold no more interest for you. You will acknowledge within the deepest recesses of your being, I have awakened to this incredible potential within me, and I accept what that will require of me. Whatever it costs me, whatever I must sacrifice to follow this path, bring it on. Even though you will still experience fear, you will recognize it for the illusion it is, and you will know how to use your human courage to face it down, such that fear will no longer have the power to stop you.
Imagine if you have taken a stand, you have spoken the words and espoused your beliefs publicly. Then you are severely tested on a personal basis. Will you have the courage to stand up for what you say you believe, especially when the things you love most are threatened?
In some cases, following through on your beliefs with consistency of your actions requires personal risk. It is said that, until we are willing to die for that larger, greater thing, we have not truly begun to live. Martin Luther King was in the process of leading a boycott against the segregated city bus system at a local church when he was informed that someone had fire-bombed his home.
That information produced a feeling of intense concern because he believed that both his wife and his young child were in the house. He rushed home and at a distance could see smoke coming from his house. There was a large group of civil rights followers gathered in front of his home.
They described how a bomb had exploded on his front porch and the glass had been blown out of the lower section of the house. The first people he came across gave him the good news that his wife and child had escaped safely. Walking up onto the destroyed porch he turned and looked out on the crowd. They were rightfully enraged about what had occurred to their leader. As the local police arrived, a violent confrontation seemed inevitable. King sensed the potential dangerous situation and raised his hand, quieting the crowd.
His words and actions in this moment of crisis remained consistent with his beliefs. I am asking that you put down your weapons and go home. We have the weapon of nonviolence, the breastplate of righteousness, the armor of truth. Remember what the bible tells us: do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Coaches and athletes can help equip themselves to act appropriately in accordance with what they stand for by anticipating confrontational situations before they happen.
When John Challis, a devout sports fan for his 18 year life, found out he was going to die, he knew that he would have a whole new outlook on life. Two years ago a doctor told him that he had a 10 pound cancerous tumor in his stomach, which was about the size of a football.
After 18 months of dealing with cancer, John entered his senior year at Freedom High School in western Pennsylvania, and as part of having cancer, his outlook on fear took a drastic U-turn.
After being diagnosed, he thought of being hit by the ball, compared to cancer, as something ridiculous to be afraid of. On April 11th John Challis took an opportunity to conquer his fear.
But stepping up to that plate again helped him prove to himself that he could hit the ball and conquer his fear. He hit the first pitch, a fastball, that was thrown in the strike zone and drilled it between first and second and went into the outfield for a single. Halfway down the baseline he was yelling, I Did It!
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