You Are Meant to Find Your Courage

It’s lingering, ready for the call from you.

Raising its hand; hoping you’ll glance its way and grab hold.

Courage patiently waits, beseeching you to know your heart, share it with others, and take action on your innermost desires.

It asks for your employ so that you might feel free.

Courage, it’s waiting for you.

As a writer, the etymology of words fascinates me.

Obviously I am obsessed with Courage and Bravery as a way of being.

But the other day, listening to a podcast, I learned the origin of courage, and a light went on inside myself.

Of course I would latch onto that word as a banner for living.

Of course.

Courage comes from the Latin word cor—or heart.

Originally courage meant to speak what is in one’s heart—the seat of our innermost feelings.

Today it’s more commonly perceived as acts of heroism and bravery.

But we don’t need days filled with Tarzan swings, grand gestures and foundation-rocking decisions. Yes, those may be brave, they certainly take courage, but those opportunities for life-altering heroism (boat-rocking brave) aren’t a daily occurrence.

I doubt we’d be able to function if they were.

Yet, there requires a great amount of courage to know your heart and to share it—openly, honestly.

That kind of courage is everyday brave.

And we need it; oh lord do we need it.

We need the woman who says, “No, that doesn’t fit with my values. I’ll find my way elsewhere.”

We need the child who knows their feelings and voices their wants.

We need the man who witnesses an injustice, feels the wrongness in his heart and takes action.

We need people who wake up to their desires and decide they will honor them and follow them until completion or death.

We need the mother who makes a phone call to a friend and says, “I love my children more than life itself, but I need a break. Will you take them tonight?”

We need the father who tells his son, “Hey, it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

We need it to be okay, acceptable, expected even, that we speak heart to heart—that we’re so in touch with what the center of ourself wants to say that it is second nature to open and let it flow into the world.

More than anything, we need courage. Because it takes a brave soul to know themselves and to act on it—especially when it’s hard, when you’re alone, when there’s no guarantee of anything.

And yet, there’s never a guarantee. Courage doesn’t come with the guarantee that you’ll never fall, fail or be hurt. It can’t, because you will experience all those things.

But, follow it, and you’ll also know great joy.

Because the outcome of living shut down, shut off and in denial of what you really want, will kill you.

Deny yourself long enough, and you’ll make yourself sick.

The courage to know your heart, express it and trust in it is begging you to use it.

Find your courage; that is your task. That is your assignment.

Find your courage and share it with the world.

Love and Courage,