- Who am I?
- Where am I going?
- What influences or inspires me to go there?
- How am I going to get there?
- What could stop me?
My new column, Ultimate Courage, here on The Good Men Project aims to help you address and respond to these questions. To do so takes courage. Maya Angelou expressed it well:
One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
The word courage comes from the Old French corage, which means “heart, innermost feelings.” Courage provides the fuel for turning our hopes into our destiny. Yet, our common understanding of courage has been limited and therefore limiting.
Courage is typically understood as physical courage like the willingness to run into a burning building to save lives; or moral courage as the capacity to stand for a cause despite the risk to one’s reputation or even safety. However, the more prevalent forms of courage are often hidden in plain sight. Intrapersonal courage is the willingness to look within and face facts or beliefs about ourselves that, often, we would rather deny or avoid. Interpersonal courage is the willingness to express thoughts, feelings, and perceptions to others who, potentially, may not respond as we would like.
In our inside-outside approach throughout this Ultimate Courage column, we will explore both intrapersonal and interpersonal courage. Both depend on the willingness to express vulnerability, which has been culturally frowned upon in how we learn to be men. So the willingness to face and embrace what we’ve learned to deny and avoid takes a certain kind of courage.
What will we find? What will happen when we vulnerably express ourselves, without the usual defenses?
Looking inward, we will focus on our relationships with ourselves. Here we’ll explore two dimensions:
Self-awareness:
How do we learn to understand what makes us tick on a deeper level? What are our core motivators? What drives or influences us to think, feel, and behave as we do? How do our self-concept beliefs influence our attitudes and actions?
It takes courage to face certain aspects of ourselves; how we may indeed be greedier, less empathic, or more hostile than we’d like to think. Or to realize that we’re more vulnerable to slights and given to anxiety than our cherished view may portend. We may long for greater connection, caring, and warmth than our more brazened picture of ourselves allows us to realize. Becoming more aware of what Carl Jung referred to as our shadow aspects—the parts of ourselves that we consciously or unconsciously deny—helps us develop greater skill and acumen than remaining unaware and unconscious.
Most of us think we know ourselves better than we actually do. Confidence, perhaps bordering on arrogance, is not our friend here. It turns out that the capacity for self-awareness isn’t well formed in the human brain. This led neuropsychologist Louis Cozzolino to quip that “Mother Nature hasn’t seen fit to devote much neural architecture to self-awareness.”
I’ve certainly found this to be true. I’ve been an outlier in terms of expressing my “truth.” The problem was that I wasn’t terribly aware of what my truth actually was. My confidence was misplaced. For example, when someone didn’t treat me with the care or respect I wanted, it was not unusual for me to give them “a piece” of my mind: “That pisses me off. What is wrong with you?” That latter wasn’t really a question. Having received my fair share of feedback that my feedback wasn’t welcome nor well received, I started to look into my deeper motivations. I found that when I felt hurt, I wanted to hurt others in reaction. If I believed that someone hit me with a stick, I wanted to return the favor.
In addition, I didn’t realize how much my “humor” was actually sarcastic. It was an indirect way of expressing hostility. I often found myself baffled that other people didn’t find it funny, just because it was at their expense. Go figure. Over the years, I’ve become far more aware of the parts of myself that have caused harm to others and, in turn, to me. It’s not that the impulse never arises. It’s that I’m more aware of those parts of myself that left to their own devices, would surface in unskillful ways. Underneath the hurt and tendency to strike out, lied beliefs that I wasn’t significant or lovable. I’ve found that being mindful of my shadowy impulses and self-concept wounds goes a long way toward intelligent restraint and positive action.
The good news is that there are time-tested methods to develop self-awareness. I’ve found that one of the best ways to develop self-awareness is by noticing and learning from our impact on others. Feedback from others comes in two basic ways: direct and indirect. Throughout Ultimate Courage, we’ll explore ways of attaining self-awareness from both other people and more internal ways of learning about ourselves. Numerous posts will be devoted to helping fill in the gaps that Mother Nature has not provided. The benefits are great.
Self-Compassion:
Most of us grew up with quite a bit of harshness directed towards us and those around us. Criticism seems to know no bounds. For most of us, it hasn’t changed all that much. “Get over it.” “Man up.” “Don’t be a wuss.” The cultural injunctions are endless. Let’s face it: it hurts to get judged by others. It’s even worse when we internalize these judgments into a harsh inner voice: “What’s wrong with me?” “I’m pathetic.” There’s quite a lot of evidence that having a harsh inner critic constricts us in predictable, harmful ways. We’ll address these throughout our time together.
The antidote is self-compassion. We’ll explore many of the myths of self-compassion like it will make you weak, lead to making excuses, or decrease motivation. There’s a lot of science here that challenges and contradicts these common myths. There are also powerful practices that will make a significant difference in your life.
Looking outward, we will spotlight courageous conversations and how to create authentic, caring relationships. We’ll explore the mindset and skillset necessary to engage in these powerful conversations—both in personal and professional relationships. We’ll explore how to decide whether or not to initiate a conversation and how to prepare for one if the decision is to move forward. We’ll also examine ways to initiate, stay on track, and complete important conversations. Courage is necessary throughout the entire process.
We’ll investigate the reasons and rationalizations that stop most of us from speaking up or doing so skillfully. We’ll also examine the inner challenges of receiving the truths of others with dignity, curiosity, and equanimity. We’ll delve into how we can steady ourselves when others blindside us in less than compassionate ways.
The intersection between self-awareness and courageous conversations will be quite apparent. Expressing shadowy values (exacting a pound of flesh) as I mentioned earlier doesn’t lend itself to creating authentic, caring relationships. Being aware of both shadow values (being right or superior, winning at all costs) and essential values (love, connection, or joy) puts us in a better position to choose. This inner evaluation helps inform the entire conversational process—from deciding to speak to completing a conversation.
Our inquiry will include theories from a variety of different fields, including psychology, leadership, neuroscience, and sociology. At the same time, we will have a practical focus on ways to use these understandings to develop healthier, compassionate, and fun relationships with ourselves and others.
I’m hoping to dialogue with you and address questions you have on your quest. Your questions may involve ways to understand yourself more fully, practice self-compassion and/or develop more courage and skill in having conversations. I look forward to accompanying you on this journey.
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What’s your take on what you just read? Comment below or write a response and submit to us your own point of view or reaction here at the red box, below, which links to our submissions portal.
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