Top Ten Light 2x4s About Courage

From vulnerability to courage: this piece on courage follows our last month's exploration of what it means to be vulnerable. We are a nation experiencing much fragility at this time, and licking our many wounds. Courage is definitely a contemplation of the hour, both at a personal and transpersonal levels…

1. Heart

The word “courage” finds its roots and inspiration in the Latin “cor,” for “heart.” And yes, it takes courage to first of all become willing to hear the heart’s guidance, and second to obey it! Are you among those that dream of being more intuitive, yet keep on pretending and not listening to the injunctions to remove the elephant with a pink lamp shade on its head from your living room?

2. Presence

Courage is not something that comes permanently, like blond hair or dark eyes. Courage happens in the now, and can be present as a choice to face the fear that just appeared, the fear to grow, the fear of being judged, the fear to let go, the fear to feel what has been suppressed, denied, or resisted, the fear to die to the old and transform to the new.

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3. Honor

There is a greatness there, even a heroic nobility to courage, an honoring gesture. When you become willing to embrace what is, there is present the pure intention behind the needed actions to be in service to your highest vision, and to your deepest commitments. That in and of itself elevates you, especially when you honor that you are about to do, or that you have done something an act of courage.

4. Honesty

This is how honesty has such a bad wrap: because it involves the courage to stop the deception, the courage to face the fears of what we have pushed away, the courage to accept your failures and to walk on another sidewalk, rather than falling in the same hole again and again, the courage to learn the lesson at last, and to thy own self be true.

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5. Darkness

It can still be frightening at times, I confess, to dive deeper and deeper into the darkness of self, the “shadow’ as Jung named it. It is murky, muddy, ugly, itchy to explore how I may compete with others, how I resent and judge, how I misuse my power, how I manipulate to have the last word, how I get so easily irritated when “they” just don’t get it! Yes, it takes a huge heart to embrace and transmute the horrors of this other part of me I would rather disown and to turn on the light!

6. Aloneness

To the question the teacher has asked repeatedly: “who would you be without your story?” the answer I hear is “alone, I would be alone!” And that means no one would love me or even like me, and then I would die. Possibly the greatest courage is to wake up on the other side of our co-dependent conditioning, and embrace our inner leadership. As stated by Martin Luther King, Jr. almost 50 years ago: "This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists."

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7. Stillness

Who at one time or another has not become completely absorbed in the beauty of a sunset, in the innocent play of a kitten, in the perfume of a rose? And even though we have to some degree all experienced the depth and the bliss of spirit, it is still a great challenge, when we are standing between a rock and a hard place, to have such desire for truth that we will courageously remain still, unmoved, unmoving, and immovable… silent!

8. Clarity

However, when we do reach beyond our humanity into our Buddhahood, into our own Christhood, into our own divinity, there is a light, a clarity that knows what to do in the moment. Then action becomes matter of fact. No more resistance there: just as an animal becomes more resourceful when in fear, our own essential being allows us to bypass the struggle of the mind and clearly enter the chaos, from stillness.

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9. Evolution

Once again, it comes down to evolution… It comes down or comes up for that matter! When we discover that there is a bigger picture besides the small self and have the courage and the boldness to face it, a higher conscience flowers in our own consciousness. We can then organically realize the role our individual and collective transformation within the whole, and show up [courageously] to this level of play.

10. Totality

Demanding? You bet! And what else is there to do, but to become aware of our intentions, of why we make the choices we make, as all our decisions have tremendous significance, and not just for ourselves. Intense? Yes, it can be, and such intensity goes away, when we courageously meet life, the mystery, the unknown, the teacher absolutely, totally, and without reservation. Consider who you would be if you made a 100% commitment to your heART?

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