I find it difficult to give advice these days. Of course, I’ve gained wisdom from my trials and tribulations, but I find it hard to apply my learnings to others. Advice is not one size fits all. Each individual’s journey and answers are so perfectly tailored to them that these tangible solutions, which proved to lead toward my salvation, might steer someone in the opposite direction than they wish to go if I were to impart this wisdom to them. For this reason, I shift my focus towards deeper, less tangible qualities whose cultivation has helped me and try to explain to others how to also cultivate them. One such quality, perhaps the most important for growth, is courage.

Courage, a quality existing at a subtler level within us, can be hard to pin down because of its distance from our very describable objective world. We can of course point out and give examples of courageous behavior, the fruit of the courage tree. But feelings and qualities are something different, something deep down, something that words seem to come up short in describing. However, even though it can be hard to describe, courage is perhaps the most essential spell in my spellbook.

Courage was the thing that I needed when listening to my own very fallible mind wasn’t working for me. My mind led me to comfort, to what was known, or at least thought to be known. It told me to smother myself in this comfort as much as possible and never stray too far from these small, well-tread paths. It led me in circles following those size 13 shoe prints. Not really daring to grow and certainly never exposing my vulnerabilities to others. Courage is the thing that allows you to venture outside of this sphere of comfortability.

When I was in rehab trying to recover from crippling drug addiction, courage pushed me through to the other side. The roots of problems like addiction are deeper and more emotional, and thus, can only be solved on that level. I remember distinctly when the floodgates of emotions finally hit me after one year of sobriety. I had the choice; I could hold them in and push them down like I always did, or embrace them, feel them, and share them with my brothers and sisters. Of course, my mind was imbuing me with the fear of feeling these emotions, so I needed to search for something inside of me that existed outside that fear. Courage helped me realize that the only way to grow was to transcend that fear and gave me the strength to do so.

It starts with a moment, I think. It’s like a flicker of light, where suddenly, your awareness shifts to your heart, even if just for a moment. The heart tells you that it’s all going to be okay. That doing something outside your comfort zone won’t be whatever that fear and anxiety your mind is telling you it will be. Many times it only takes this flicker to start that thing you feared, and as discussed in Decker’s blog, sometimes all it takes is to “just get started.”

Listening to your heart tends to build like a muscle. Your sphere of what is comfortable for you begins to engulf the uncomfortable. Eventually, you gain this “courage on command.” When you find yourself facing uncomfortable situations, you can take a deep breath, pause, and connect to that place within you that knows no fear. With this greater expansion comes the growth of the self and greater fulfillment, which in turn creates a positive feedback loop. 

These repeated acts of courage are the best way to grow. It seems like embedded within the mind is the desire to live within the known, but strangely enough, to also seek to know more. I think the frustration comes when, through ignorance, stress, and trauma, you lack the ability to know more. So you do what you know, which wasn’t always the best course of action in my case.

I may not have done the best job articulating precisely what is meant by “courage,” but as I said, it is something subtle and hard to describe. To know what it is, you must remember that there exists something within you that acts at a deeper level than your thoughts. This is where courage resides. To help strengthen this connection to this deeper level, connect to your feelings and emotions. What is your body telling you? Allow yourself to feel that. This is courage in action. Next time somebody asks you how you are feeling, take a moment and answer as honestly as you are capable of. This is courage in action. Do you want to do that thing that you have imagined yourself doing but were scared to actualize? Follow your heart and do it. This is courage in action.

-Dylan M.