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Author Stuart Wilde says, “All you need in life is courage.”
He also says, “Everything is out there waiting for you. All you have to do is walk up and declare yourself in. No need for permission. You just need courage to say, “Include me.” Providing you have the energy to pull it off you can do what you like. And the Universal Law, being impartial, will be only too delighted to deliver.”
I’ve been on a path of spiritual discovery for many years and always find myself face to face with learning about and working to understand the notion of courage. I’ve found that courage is usually the answer.
What does it mean to be courageous? It means to be bigger than your current situation—and it also means to stay with your current situation. It’s not a specific way to be or one answer—it’s a path to move forward.
It’s confronting what needs to be confronted. It means you continue to do what you know is right—even if everyone tells you it’s crazy.
“Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else.”
― Tennessee Williams, Camino Real
Having courage means to face your fears and move through them and past them—not to be perpetually connected to them—not to let any fear define you. Having courage means to let the fear show you how brave you can be, not to make you falter and cower.
Moving through fears, resentments—forms of suffering, they allow a person to renew. Courage means being confident in your inner thoughts—in your pure mind and heart. It means you can trust in your intuition and believe that you know what you need to do—even if everything tells you no logically—but you know it will work. You can feel it. It means you might not be popular for a bit—but that doesn’t matter—because you have courage. And your innate wisdom urges you that the path you are on is right.
Having courage means you are okay with forfeiting certain gratifications in order to wait a little longer for the larger outcome. You’re okay with it because you’ve learned to trust your intuition. Developing the courage muscle starts to feel good too, once you get over the learning curves. Being courageous is exciting. It also feels good when you know many other people are being courageous too. Look around and start to notice who has decided to jump out of the auto-pilot seat and decide to be courageous. It’s breathtaking to notice when others have decided to move past their fears and be more lion-hearted.
Courage means putting yourself out there each day—or as much as possible—a little more each day. It adds up. Even if you’re not completely ready or not totally sure or your idea isn’t completely perfect yet—it’s doing it despite the ifs.
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― William Faulkner
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.”
― Mark Twain
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