Courage Law # 26

The Courage it takes to look one’s fears in the face can transform both the fear and the one who is afraid.  Take back the Power you have given to your fears.

Cynthia F. Davidson, from the Wisdom Wheel Courage card

  (cards, stones, posters & more available via www.thewisdomwheel.com)

What do you think takes the most Courage? 

Admitting you are wrong? 

Facing a terminal illness? 

Standing up to an enemy? Or to someone close to you?

Being honest, about your beliefs, when others disagree and you will be alone? 

Over a lifetime, we'll need all kinds of Courage, and during the next ten days, make it a point to experiment with as many types of this Law as you can. Think about your Courage and how it encourages others. And explore the opposite of Courage. What affects do your fears have, upon you, your friends and family. 

Sometimes we need mental Courage. Other times it's bodily Courage or  spiritual Courage we must draw upon. And then there is the Courage of the heart. 

When our hearts are not in something, we lack Courage and lose heart too easily. The word Courage comes from coeur, the French term for the heart. This implies that true Courage is an inner strength, not dependent upon big muscles, or well developed intellects.

   

Take the time to make a list of courageous acts you admire, and ones you have taken part in. 

Who do you know, in your personal life, who has exhibited the most Courage? What made them so courageous?  

When you look ahead to your future years, what (do you believe) will require the most Courage from you? From others?

Courage can also makes us foolhardy, if it is the boastful sort of bravado that incites others and causes trouble. We know about quiet Courage, but it also requires considerable Courage to get out there, or to get up on the stage (or TV) in front of people, knowing you'll be criticized, behind your back.  

Here are some insights from experiences with Courage.   

The most salient mark of a creative person... is not physical courage... it is a personal courage, a courage of the mind and spirit, psychological or spiritual courage that is the radius of a creative person: the courage to question what is generally accepted; the courage to be destructive in order that something better can be constructed; the courage to be open to experience both from within and without; the courage to imagine the impossible and try to achieve it; the courage to stand aside from collectivity and in conflict with it, if necessary; the courage to become and to be oneself.

D.W. MacKinnon

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage in an untrained mind leads to cruelty, and in a trained mind it leads to hope and compassion.

P.J. Saher in Zen-Yoga

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple

The man with outward courage dares to die; the man with inward courage dares to live.        
Lao Tzu

Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

Maya Angelou

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Mark Twain

Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built.

Rollo May

The bravest of individuals is the one who obeys his or her conscience.

J. F. Clarke

You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.

Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray

Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.

Mahatma Gandhi

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

Atticus Finch, character in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird

It takes courage for a person to listen to their own goodness and act on it.  Do we dare to be ourselves?  This is the question that counts.

Pablo Casals, cellist and humanist

The law of Courage is about the 
ability to not only face a danger but to risk an action to defuse that danger. When action is taken, fear departs. …Courage is a quality of an evolved soul in manifestation…its deficiency being cowardice and its vice, excess recklessness. …Courage is one of the four cardinal virtues, along with prudence, justice and temperance.

Margo Kirtikar, Ph.D.

In ten days, we'll take up the 27th Law of Commitment, until then, be of good Courage.