Cultivating Courage

Life brings many lessons, some monumental and some small yet mighty. We react in various ways to the distresses in our lives—some stay in the suffering that somehow feels comfortable, others project suffering onto others either willingly or unconsciously, and those called to action decide to face the pain underneath the suffering with courage and grit, vowing not to let it affect ourselves or others.

All paths represent our karma as it intertwines with the karma of the other souls on this earth. And it’s all divine and perfect, however tragic or magical it may seem. The person who agrees to pass pain forward in this lifetime serves a purpose by helping others learn, which often translates into the affected person learning how to love and respect themselves more deeply. The person who stays in their suffering isn’t ready to evolve and typically must learn self-compassion, patience, and acceptance before they can continue. The one ready to face the pain may have already served both of these roles in the past giving them the experience, compassion and strength to stand up and break the cycle of suffering. In any of these situations, the person can decide to cultivate the courage it takes to transcend whatever trauma or pain they have experienced.

To process a deep-seated fear, we must first process the shame, fear of shame, the fear of fear itself, and any other related emotions to uncover the real fear underneath. Once we get past these surprisingly less painful gatekeepers protecting the real cause of our suffering, we can access the root and start processing it. This may take many tries as the pain has most likely been there for decades.

According to neuroscience, emotions only last about 90 seconds, but only if we accept the emotion without judgment and not fuel it with other unhelpful thoughts. This is part of what is meant by embracing our shadow. We must love the part of ourselves that feels icky to be able to accept it so that we can truly feel what it’s trying to get us to feel. Ignoring or distracting only makes it worse, as it will get louder and eventually manifest in other unhealthy ways.

After feeling these super deep, often hidden emotions, we must follow them with a creative process – whether painting, writing, music, dance, baking a cake, or even just mowing the lawn. The stuck emotions must have a creative outlet to be molded into a new neural pathway to replace the old pattern.

The good news is feeling it is totally worth it and absolutely possible! If there is a will, there is a way. The pure joy, untapped energy, never-ending well of creativity and incredible connectedness underneath all the pain make life worth living! From my experience, more pain equals more hidden joy.

There are many ways to approach this process, most of which require you to be in your body. This means energetically feeling every cell in your body, even the parts that make you cringe or want to vomit. This can be accomplished in many ways – ayurveda, yoga, the right counseling, meditation, walking in nature, etc.

If you’d like guidance from someone who has BEEN THROUGH IT and has cultivated a wide variety of tools to help, please reach out. I would be so happy to share what I’ve learned. If money is an issue, please contact me anyway. I won’t turn anyone away. We will work something out!

*These are my thoughts, no AI is involved.