Is Your Courage a Cripple?

Full courage has three cornerstones, or three legs.
Without all three legs, 
the strength and resilience of your courage is weakened.
Most of us are familiar with only one of the three legs, the last one.

The leg of alignment

The first leg, unfamiliar to most of us,
is the "leg of alignment."
Courage includes
embracing and aligning with the energy of the fear,
rather than resisting the fear, as we are accustomed to do.

One way to easily align yourself with your fear,
so that you can tap into and use its energy
in the service of your desires and commitments,
is to take many deep breaths,
speaking/shouting as you breathe,
"Boy, am I scared!"
Because our automatic and habitual response to fear
is to resist it and misalign ourselves with it,
we must be proactive in embracing its energy.

The leg of self-acknowledgment

The second leg, also unfamiliar to most of us,
is the "leg of self-acknowledgment."
Courage includes
honoring and acknowledging ourselves
for our choice of courage
before and after the act of courage.
I recommend doing this
after you complete the "Boy, am I scared!" process.

Here's a powerful way to create profound self-acknowledgment:
Consider the idea that it's not the adult in you who is frightened.
It's the five-year-old in you who is frightened.
Get in touch with that five-year-old you.
See and feel that s/he is frightened.
Then say to him,
"I can see and feel that you are frightened."
"It's okay to feel frightened."
"I really honor and admire you
for the courage you're about to choose."
Express your admiration and appreciation of him
until you feel that s/he understands.
Of course, when s/he gets it, then you get it!

But this is only half the process.
After the action is over (the third leg), regardless of the outcome
(remember that courage exists independent of the outcome),
get back in touch with your five-year-old
and again express your admiration
for the courage s/he just chose.

The leg of action

The third leg, familiar to all of us, is the "leg of action."
Courage is taking action in the service of our deepest desires 
and highest commitments in the face of fear.
Taking action is an important and essential part of courage.

By including all three legs as integral parts of every act of courage,
you will be amazed at how empowered you feel.

Find at least three opportunities today to choose courage.

Practice including all three legs in each expression of courage.

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"...we're not truly feeling our fear, but rather only our urge to flee it- we are, in such a case, desperately trying to escape from our fear, to change our state, to propel or project ourselves into a condition of such pleasurable diversion that our sensations of fear are minimized, or perhaps not even felt at all! This craving to not directly feel our fear only strengthens it; those who persist in such behavior tend to disembody, to only live on the periphery of themselves, as far away as possible from the intensity of their fear, dwelling in the thinking portions of their minds, committing themselves to the search for release ... ever looking for antidotes for what they are already doing to themselves! 
-Robert Augustus Masters in Truth Cannot Be Rehearsed

You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have no courage. You're confusing courage with wisdom. 
-Unknown

What you resist, persists. If you take ownership and deal with things that are bothering you, then, in the very process of dealing with them they very often will go away.
- Unknown

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