Courage

We all have need of courage every day of our lives. Courage to meet what comes. What might have been defeat becomes victory with courageous action. Meeting our life situations in a way that brings right results always demands the quality of courage. Courage, real courage, comes from the cultivation of inner resources, spiritual resources that will help us to keep on keeping on. To optimize our personal inventory.

If we are consistently afraid of something with heightened emotions, then our subconscious mind accepts what we think and feel as being true. It’s powerless to reject what we think. And, the subconscious mind is where the power in us is. If we are afraid of something, we have decided to be afraid.

  • Fear is the result of a decision once made.

So when we have decided to be afraid of something, then we have sent a message that we have decided to be afraid to the subconscious mind that we are afraid. It accepts that message and carries it out, deciding that if we are afraid, then that it has the responsibility of providing us with that we’re afraid of.

René Gaudette (speaker, author) said:

  • That which you fear the most, you attract easiest.

So we attract what we fear, then what? Well, after awhile, we get tired of being afraid, because we are not designed to be afraid. So then we get angry at the other person, thing, or ourselves.

Now, in our lives, in the life of an angry person today, it doesn’t appear to be a choice, but originally it was a choice. And do you know why people choose anger early in their lives? Well, it’s a learned behavior, but we choose anger because we don’t feel adequate to handle the situation. And so if you can’t handle something, what do we do? What’s the best thing to do if we can’t handle it? Become angry with it. That’s one way of coping. Anger is an old outworn manner of coping. So, when we choose anger, then our subconscious mind then chooses for us all of those things that we know will cause us to be angry.

  • Have you noticed how angry people go through life being angry with all of the things that they have programmed themselves to experience? We need courage to eliminate fear and anger.

I worked through high school at an old folk’s hospital where I observed many elderly persons behavior. Those that had been constantly angry had the consistent behavior in which they fought and yelled up until a short period before they passed. Then they became very quiet and still.

Contrast this behavior with that of Clint Eastwood (film actor, director). He was asked how we kept up his fast at pace 88 years old. He said:

  • “I don’t let the old man in. I keep myself busy. You have to stay active, alive, happy, strong, capable.” In other words, he made a choice to continue to be useful.

Brene’ Brown (research professor at the University of Houston) may have said it best:

  • I believe that you have to walk through vulnerability to get to courage, therefore embrace the suck. I try to be grateful every day, and my motto right now is “Courage over comfort”.

Dr. Jonas Salk (October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995), whose vaccine, virtually, has eliminated polio, gave a formula for the future where he said:

  • If we can be courageous one more time than we’re fearful
  • Trusting one more time than we’re anxious
  • Cooperative one more time than we’re competitive
  • Forgiving one more time than we’re hateful
  • We will have moved closer to the next breakthrough in our evolution

So many good things in my life have happened because I tried one more time.

What Dr. Salk was talking about is the different level of thinking that Jesus was talking about that is not natural to our human condition. And Jonas Salk also said that there’s one warning. Evolutionary spiritual behavior is addictive. Once you start, it’s very hard to stop. Once you start practicing spiritual principles, it’s very hard to stop because it works. It’s very hard to go back to your old reactions, such as vindictiveness, keeping score, getting even. It’s not fun anymore. It’s not fun anymore at all.

  • We discover there’s no room in us to think in those old ways, no room in us at all.

Courage