This is courageous living
Courageous living or living with courage is not what people think it is. Courageous living is not doing a bunch of wild, spontaneous, risky things to prove you’re a bad-ass. Courageous living is not about not caring what other people think—let’s just admit that on some level, we ALL care about what other people think in some way, shape, or form.
This is courageous living: a vision for your life that is hand-crafted by you, one present moment at a time.
This is courageous living: deciding that you won’t tolerate the status quo of unjust systems and that you’ll speak up and out about them.
This is courageous living: wanting a good world not just for yourself, but for everyone.
This is courageous living: leaning into the edges of where we are most resistant to taking responsibility for our lives, and being willing to look ourselves squarely in our own two eyes.
Courageous living is not a 1-2-3 plan or a finished product. Whatever you define for your courageous life today may shift in a year or two, but there are certain fundamental behaviors that make up living a courageous life that will be part of your definition wherever you go.
No one is “born courageous.” We all have the capacity to act with courage, to learn how to do the things that we are afraid to do and somatically and intellectually understand that our fear may be uncomfortable, but does not have to control our lives.
I define courage as: feeling afraid, diving in anyway, and transforming. Whenever we lean into that edge, there's juicy stuff there. (By the way: Glennon Doyle rightly points out that overriding fear isn’t helpful. When I say “Feeling afraid, diving in anyway, and transforming,” I am not talking about overriding your fear. I’m talking about accepting that the fear is there, diving in—in whatever capacity you have, respectful of your capacity—and see what transforms because you did that. This is courageous living).
There are behaviors that make up courageous living. These are the behaviors:
BEing your journey/being in process
A commitment to your vision for yourself, with gentleness along the way.
Slowing down
Prioritizing self-care
Making room for passion and play--even if it's only 5 minutes a day
Feeling your feelings (no more reciting affirmations or pushing oneself to "think positive" until the very real feelings have been acknowledged and worked through)
Risking being seen by others
Unconditional love and acceptance (and that means no more hating your inner critic, calling it a Gremlin or a monster or all sorts of other names that that sad, scared, triggered little piece of the heart is so often called)
A commitment to your life vision, with gentleness along the way (and that means that on the days where you don't risk being seen, or you don't have unconditional love and acceptance, or you don't...whatever...you step into some gentleness that you are a tender and lovely human being. It's okay.)
Returning to the present moment and using it as a source of power. Coming to just breathing and getting present is the most powerful tool I know.
Releasing the Stories. ("Capital-S" Stories are those habituated beliefs/ways of thinking/assumptions that are so conditioned that they seem real, even if they might not be).
Honoring your integrity. Matching your words and actions. Aligning them with your vision.
This is a big one: claiming your choices, and claiming your life. Accept responsibility for all of it.
Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. Living 100% fully alive cannot co-exist with resentment.
Respectfully speaking your truth.
Noticing your resistance and then working with it from a place of curiosity: what do you have to teach me?
Creating intimacy and connection in your relationships
Being a stand for connection between human beings--which means, that chick that you "hate" at your office? Try out some compassion. That guy who just acted all road-ragey? Send him some love. Clearly, he needs it.
Dreaming big.
Being open to magical possibility, and, if it resonates for you, spirit/the Universe/ some kind of unseen force for good
When you start practicing these behaviors regularly, courageous living stops being aspirational and starts feeling truly possible. These behaviors are habits that become patterns—helpful patterns—and the more you practice them the more they feel like “just how I live my life.” This is courageous living.
You’ll define for yourself the specific contours of your life. You may be a stay at home mom practicing Honoring your integrity just as much as a working mother practices this behavior. You may decide to sell everything and travel the world or you might be a homebody whose courage comes from the way that they support their closest neighbors, and both of you might be “Claiming your choices, claiming your life” and accepting responsibility for that—this is courageous living even if those two lives might look very different.
Flashy and impressive are not pre-requisites for courage.
What is your courageous life? What is courageous living, for you? Grab a journal and write down what comes up. I often love the prompt, “If I could have it any way I want it, how would I want it?” because that can get things flowing. After you write, consider what your courageous life looks like and identify the specific behaviors from the list above that might make that courageous vision come to fruition.