There's a myth that I think needs to be debunked--mightily and often. The myth is that we either are courageous people or we're not, that we have the innate ability or personality to be courageous or we simply lack it. Period, end of story, drop the mic.
I am not 100% sure of much of anything anymore, but I am absolutely 100% sure that this is nonsense.
And just to be sure we're on the same page, courage as I mean it here is that you are experiencing angst, fear, or even pure terror and somehow, you do the very thing that is causing you that emotion. In short, you stand facing it and allow it to hit you like a WWF wrestler, because you are so committed to taking the next step beyond that body blow.
You wouldn't know this about me unless you knew me in high school, had lived with me at some point, or had been my therapist, but I have a life-long history of anxiety. I'm not talking your garden variety hand-wringing stuff here. I'm talking about having lived through periods of time when I was plagued with panic attacks and agoraphobia. I was a hot mess for a lot of years. I just covered it well.
A lot of it came from growing up on the southside of Chicago where I was frequently terrorized for the amusement of roving gangs of kids older than me, and threatened and punched by neighbor boys who lived on my block. I understood at an early age that my safety was never a given, that I had to be always vigilant about everyone around me. Except for summer camp, there was not a time in my childhood that I could truly relax and feel a safe distance from death. That does some pretty unattractive things to the developing brain.
Jump ahead 30 years. I'm facing the worst dilemma of my life--then or since: do I leave the man I have adored for 18 years--the man I made a home and family with--to save myself?
I had had a moment of total and utter clarity, standing in our bedroom, after making the bed one morning. Out of no where, I suddenly realized that not only was he not in anyway "there" for me, and had never been "there" for me, but that even if I were struck down by cancer (G-d forbid!), he would never be "there" for me.
And then the second, even more powerful realization that followed moments later: that the marriage was so toxic to me, that one way or another, I would end up leaving the marriage, because my body would not sustain the stress of it. So either I left voluntarily on my own two feet or I would "leave" in a coffin.
A lot of people at the time said it took courage to leave him. Well, yes and no. When your life is on the line, and you are unwilling to die for that cause, it becomes a necessity. Motivation sort of precedes courage. You find the courage later, during those horrible dark nights of the soul, when you somehow fight your way back up above the wave of despair and take a full, deep breath of life.
But it was a step. I was becoming more courageous, little by little.
Now jump ahead a year later. The divorce is finalized and we are settling into a pattern of co-parenting and singlehood. I am in my living room, watching the first wave of returning Afghanistan War soldiers walk off an airplane, and I see it--that 1000-yard stare that comes with shock and dissociation. I know the look instantly because, by then, I had studied extensively and become expert in PTSD.
Having lived through the Vietnam War, and been unable to do anything as a teenager to help my returning peers, I once again had a moment of clarity. This was not a war I could sit out. I couldn't watch another generation of soldiers come home and just sit on the sidelines.
How does a girl wracked with free-floating fear pretty much every night (and day) of her childhood face the bone-marrow fear of joining the Army during a time of war at the rather ludicrous age of 46?
I knew deep in my marrow that, with my area of expertise, being part of the Nurse Corps was the right choice. And having somehow survived those early months of excruciating pain during the divorce, I was a little tougher--not a lot, but a little. So I turned and faced toward that fear instead of turn my back to it. I walked into the fire, with nothing more than the knowledge that I had to do this.
That's all courage is. You're not born with it. You learn it. It comes to you over time, experience by experience.
What does it take to take that first step towards a more courageous life?
You have to want to do the right thing
more than you want to be comfortable.
Hollywood glamorizes it, but being courageous is incredibly uncomfortable. You have to trust that you can, and will, tolerate the discomfort somehow, some way.
Admittedly, that's a very tough first step. Want an easier one?
Literally stand straighter. Make yourself as tall as you can.
I learned this accidentally in the Army. The expectation that you will stand tall, shoulders back, eyes ahead is a given. I found this stance to be transformative. I was, indeed, more courageous when I adopted this posture. People around me responded to me differently, too.
So when you've found that one piece of Warrior jewelry and you put it on, force yourself to stand taller, shoulders back, eyes straight ahead. Face that body blow and know you can endure it.
That's when you start living the courageous life.