This article is strictly for entertainment purposes. Always consult a licensed professional for advice.
……Life can be hard. So often, it’s easier to stay small or tow the line, continue with what’s familiar instead of branching out and spreading our wings to new heights.
……Are you ready to enter a new chapter of your life? Ready to accept greater good, break old patterns or elevate your life in one of these six areas of courage? This quick assessment tool can help you gain clarity around an area that you may feel stuck in and wish to feel greater freedom. With conscious attention, support and small steps, you can expand your courage and live a more authentic and fulfilling life. Please keep in mind that it’s OK to need help finding and expressing more courage.
……Often when we think of courage, we might think of big leaps like slaying a dragon, quitting a terrible job, ending a bad relationship or changing our lifestyle. While all of those things do require courage, we don’t speak often enough of the powerful compounding effects of small, consistent acts of courage over time.
……To have PHYSICAL COURAGE is to be courageous enough to keep on going with resiliency, balance and awareness. To have or gain physical courage often requires both physical training and the training of the mind to allow the body to do more than is comfortable. Like expansion in many areas, gaining courage in any of these six areas requires practice, consistency and small steps.
……Physical courage is a great way to see the power of small, consistent efforts. Begin by taking one 10-minute walk every day that eventually, naturally expands into 15 minute, 20 minutes. Soon enough, you might be counting miles not minutes. Start with five pushups a day, a 15-second plank or two-pound dumbbells. Sometimes it’s easier to conceptualize what we can physically see or measure.
……To have SOCIAL COURAGE is to be courageous enough to be yourself, unapologetically. In a social climate that is so painfully divisive, this can be challenging in certain groups, maybe with colleagues or even family dynamics. What can be so powerful about expanding one’s social courage is that it can be liberating to truly identify with whom you are safe to express yourself fully and with whom you are not. The more clearly you can distinguish the two, the more you can set your life up to cultivate and grow your circle of people who support your authentic self and your highest and best!
……To have MORAL COURAGE is to be courageous enough to do the right thing when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular. As we expand in our moral courage, we deepen our relationship with life itself, those who surround us, our immediate community, and the places and spaces that are enhanced by the unique presence of who we are as an individual. We are all so unique in how we see the world and the events of each moment. When we have moral courage, we protect our community and those we commune with.
……To have INTELLECTUAL COURAGE is to be courageous enough to learn, unlearn and relearn with an open and flexible mind. Just because we were told it was true or practiced or even lived something one way doesn’t necessarily mean it’s for our highest and best. Our parents, upbringing, society, history books, etc., may teach us one thing or one way. However, it’s up to us to be willing to question everything, to find truth and knowledge for ourselves — to learn how to tell what resonates as truth within our own heart, mind, body and spirit. Maybe it’s a programmed bias or maybe it’s an unhealthy habit. Maybe it’s a false or limiting belief or viewpoint. Regardless, we are absolutely capable of learning a higher truth for ourselves!
……To have SPIRITUAL COURAGE is to be courageous enough to live with purpose and meaning through a heart-centered approach toward all life and oneself. Without spiritual courage, what is it all even for? What makes you get up each morning? What makes you muster through the challenges life holds and brings? The more we develop our personal spiritual courage, the easier life’s curve balls become to handle and the easier it is to get back to center when we get knocked off course. It becomes easier to find and practice compassion for ourselves and others in challenging times.
……To have EMOTIONAL COURAGE is to be courageous enough to be able and willing to feel and share your feelings. Until we can know what we feel, we can’t truly be ourselves in the world. Yet, even to clearly and consciously know how we feel isn’t enough. We must also be willing to learn and practice healthy ways of feeling and expressing our emotions. ……When we don’t practice, our emotions can bottle up, fester and grow. Oftentimes, they end up coming out sideways and hurt us and/or those around us. That is never good for anyone. The more emotional courage we cultivate, the better we know ourselves and the freer we can feel in life. We can more accurately cultivate a life that supports our highest and best.
……If you’re interested in expanding your courage in any of these six ways, the assessment above can be a powerful tool to help identify stuck, tight, congested or stifled areas of your life and expression.
……Take a moment to find a quiet, comfortable place where you can focus for a few minutes, uninterrupted.
Slowly read each courage statement and ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 5, what feels most true about each statement you read:
……1. Representing a feeling that you are too petrified to be courageous.
……2. Implying that you are not necessarily deathly afraid, yet you are more fearful than not.
……3. Being neutral, not afraid nor courageous.
……4. Signifying that you are, at least slightly, willing to have some courage, at least on occasion.
……5. Denoting that you are actively, absolutely courageous enough for the courage statement to be true.
……Try not to think too hard about your answer. Check the star in the column of the color that resonates with you first, after reading the courage statement.
……After you have completed a self-assessment of all six areas of courage, look at your answers. Does anything surprise you?
Identify one area that you would like to begin practicing and building more courage in.
……Identify one to three small actions you can take to practice being more courageous in that area. Be mindful that you don’t need to do anything extreme.
……Ask for help. Either for possible safety concerns or simply to be witnessed by a friend or loved one. To ask for help is itself a powerful act of courage.
……Cultivate a practice of small courageous acts in that area and watch how free and more joyful you feel and you consistently live a more authentic and courageous life.
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