YOUR LIFE A-Z: COURAGE

INTENTION BRINGS COURAGE AND THEN ACTION

COURAGE

There is a debate of how COURAGE and brave are the same and different.  If you look up both words in the dictionary no one really defines the difference.  They seem similar but the Twenty Minute Coach is going to take creative license.  If you go back to yesterday's word, "brave" you will find that I define Brave as taking action even though the situation may be frightening.  I  invite you to think about COURAGE as the internal response and  emotional fortitude to execute the brave action. COURAGE can be cultivated and shaped into a resourceful inner strength that prepares you for difficult and frightening situations.  How do you do that?   

First take a realistic look at your life, relationship, health, and job.  What is working for you and what needs to be changed?  Create a plan of change by writing it down.  Then spend ten minutes each day visualizing yourself completing the task on the list.  Next journal what comes up for you as you watch yourself in your minds eye completing the challenges.  Stay with each challenge daily until your anxiety reduces and you can face the challenge with a sense of COURAGE that you have now created inside of yourself.  Feel the sense of a challenge and watch the brave person inside of you complete the challenge.  Stop the stories that you tell yourself about your limitations and just focus on visualizing yourself succeeding. Do this daily until you have enough internal COURAGE to be brave.  The link is below to learn the story of Mary Magdalene in the picture above. 

http://www.denver.goarch.org/parishes/Grand_Junction/mary_magdalene

YOUR LIFE A=Z: BRAVE

READ MY LIPS AND TAKE ACTION

BRAVE

Being BRAVE is not the absence of fear.  Being BRAVE means to act on or to face a situation even though you feel fear or anxiety about it.  For example a BRAVE action requires that you know you need to do and see the risks and possible hardships that might occur and do it anyway.   Sometimes, I hear my clients say, “I wish I was more BRAVE.”  BRAVE does not come in measured amounts.  BRAVE is BRAVE.   When you are forced to deal with a situation that you would rather not have to deal with and face that situation rather than avoid it, then you BRAVE the situation and face what you need to do.  Perhaps it is leaving a job, a relationship, or coping with a difficult scenario in your life.  The action of doing something about the situation is BRAVE.   To do nothing, avoid it or numb out with a substance rather than face it,  is not BRAVE.  BRAVE is not passive; BRAVE is action encapsulated amidst the fear and possible dangers.  To jump into a river to help save someone else’s life is BRAVE.  To jump into the water to save someone else’s life when you don’t know how to swim is stupid, because both of your will drown.   To stand on the shore and wring your hands is not BRAVE.  To look around for something to throw to the drowning person or run down stream while calling for help is BRAVE.  Today give yourself credit for being BRAVE in you life’s situation.