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COURAGE
The Heart and Spirit of Every Woman
Reclaiming
the Forgotten Virtue
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Chapter
Ten
Conscious Choice
"Take
your life in your own hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one to blame."
—Erica Jong
Walking
Your Own Yellow Brick Road
Transported from her home and her comfortable frame of reference,
Dorothy embarked on a path of discovery that took her to the
strange Land of Oz on the other side of the rainbow. After
she inadvertently killed a wicked witch, she was thanked by
a grateful "good witch," who awarded her the ruby slippers
of the dead witch. Thus began her journey of self-revelation.
Toward its end, she consciously faced and destroyed Oz's foremost
villain, the wicked Witch of the West. Finally unlocking the
secret of personal fulfillment, Dorothy found that she was
the only person who could get her what she desired most—a
back home. Her gift, the ruby slippers she had worn since
the very beginning of her journey, was the key to get back
to Kansas.
As you move down your personal yellow brick road, you are
more likely to enjoy the journey as your range of choice increases.
While it may not get you to Oz more quickly, the ability to
make conscious choices will ensure that you are more mature
and less naïve when you get there. A naïve woman continues
to make poor choices. The only path toward consciousness is
through the heart.
Life is fundamentally a journey of consciousness, a state
of growing awareness. William Jennings Bryan said, "Destiny
is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is
not something to be waited for, but rather something to be
achieved."
The beauty of developing awareness of human behavior patterns
is that you can gain insight into your own way of seeing and
responding to life's ups and downs. If you change your belief
system and begin to live positively in uncertainty, you can
face each day with faith that you will be provided for in
every way. Though coping mechanisms fluctuate from helpful
to detrimental, they ultimately prevent us from creating our
best selves. Let us hope that your desire for a new way of
functioning is stronger than your desire to cling to old defenses.
Your inner observer is ready and present when higher consciousness
expresses itself.
I Want What I Want
The greatest freedom in life is that of choice. The single
most powerful investment you can ever make in life is in yourself.
Your goal should be to add choices so you can define a different
and positive pattern. This is the essence of growth. Establishing
a constructive framework signals a useful course of action.
Any increase in choice is an increase in opportunity. This
makes choice a precious gift: the gift of independent thought
and action. Carol S. Pearson writes in The Hero Within,
"Most of us are slaves of the stories we unconsciously tell
ourselves about our lives. Freedom begins the moment we become
conscious of the plot line we are living and, with this insight,
recognize that we can step into another story altogether.
Our experiences of life quite literally are defined by our
assumptions. We make up stories about the world and to a great
degree live out their plots."
You alone are responsible for the design of your life. The
choices you make become your road map. Once you develop a
personal voice and move beyond conventional limited roles,
you will develop the courage to act upon your personal purpose.
By honing the specific behaviors of courage, you can transcend
personal and societal barriers to succeed in whatever arenas
you choose.
Designing a language of courage offers a whole new perspective
of choices available to you. Alexandra Stoddard writes in
Making Choices: Discover the Joy in Living the Life You
Want to Lead, "If we're willing to make difficult decisions
that define our character, decisions that come straight from
the heart, and we're also willing to take responsibility for
the consequences of actions, we will discover that choice
is what guides our personal destiny."
Being alive necessitates responding to the stresses and opportunities
that come your way. When courage is consciously nurtured and
strengthened, you are infused with the feminine energy to
exert the power of choice. You can speak up, maintain your
boundaries, and adhere to your beliefs. When courage is collectively
harnessed, it becomes an instrument for redefinition of self.
Every year I jog the "Race for the Cure" to raise funds to
fight breast cancer. When it first came to my hometown, the
turn out was mediocre. Now the event Is tremendously popular.
The feeling generated by the women (and men) who support this
cause is overwhelming. I seem to run a little faster now that
the hope for a cure is shared publically by so many. The collective
energy defines the moment.
The goal of life is to invent and create, not to simply get
by. It takes will and choice to break out of your behavior
pattern. Stephen Covey states in his book The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People, "Between
stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. Within
the freedom to choose are those endowments that make us uniquely
human-self-awareness; imagination (the ability to create in
our minds beyond our present reality); conscience (a deep
inner awareness of the principles that govern our behavior,
and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions
are in harmony with them); and independent will (the ability
to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences).
Once you have decided on your highest priorities, conscious
choice takes over. It is the ability to act rather than to
be acted upon."
Dorothy
and the Cowardly Lion fell asleep in the poppy field because
the wicked witch had cast a poisonous spell on them. Most
of us want to sleepwalk through life. We have fallen asleep
to our essential self. In The Wizard of Oz, the good
witch wakes up Dorothy and the Lion by making it snow so they
can continue their journey to Oz. Change takes hard work.
We must wake up and use conscious choice to follow our own
yellow brick road.
Your Feminine Energy: A Force to Be Reckoned With
The Latin word for energy is virs, meaning energy.
Our feminine energy is the power of our hearts and spirits
to choose courage as a way of living. Choosing courage means
not needing to be defined by the opinions of others or to
gain the approval of others. Each journey begins by choosing
new thoughts and attitudes and describing them through language.
Conscious choice requires taking responsibility for the experiences
you create. You do many things out of habit. Sometimes the
choices are little ones, such as deciding to honk your horn
in irritation at another driver. Or they may be big ones,
such as spreading malicious gossip about another person. These
decisions affect the outcome of your life. Managing your choices
is a full-time job.
Joseph Jaworski said in Synchronicity, "I discovered
that people are not really afraid of dying; they're afraid
of not ever having lived, not ever having deeply considered
their life's higher purpose, and not ever having stepped into
that purpose and at least tried to make a difference in this
world."
Discovering life's higher purpose requires courage. To see
your purpose clearly is the gift of insight. Fulfilling that
purpose requires even more courage.
You may deceive yourself into believing that choice can be
enjoyed without responsibility. William H. Nix writes in Character
Works, "The freedom to choose brings with it the mantle
of responsibility. True freedom of choice does not exist without
responsibility. Responsibility does not exist without a standard,
or set of standards. It is the standard that creates the need
for responsibility. The standard is a person's purpose."
Hopefully, all of us have some awareness of our specific purpose.
To live on purpose means not by accident. One way to start
the process of discovery is to simply ask yourself: "What
is my purpose here on this earth? and "What am to do with
my life?" The answer to these questions provides insight and
help you to discover your heart's desire.
You may experience a certain amount of fear when you discover
your pattern of behavior as unraveled in Chapter Seven, Self-Discovery.
When you realize your pattern of thinking and behavior, observe
a breakdown, and design a new language, you should be motivated
to change your choices. Learning is the catalyst for maintaining
focus on your purpose.
All of which reminds me of a joke: How many therapists does
it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb
has to be willing to be changed. To change your choices, consider
calling upon virtue of courage. It takes courage to experience
life in a new and different way.
Courage is not a tangible commodity. Americans are addicted
to material things: cars, houses, clothing, etc. Courage,
however, is an inner-essence like love, creativity, and energy.
Although you can not buy it in a store, it is one of the most
valuable possessions on earth. Without courage, we could never
learn from our mistakes. Rita Mae Brown in Rubyfruit Jungle
says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, but
expecting a different result.
Sue Patton Thoele, therapist and author of several books,
shared with me In an interview, "No matter how much we learn
the language of courage or how much we change our behavior,
I am not sure we'll automatically be courageous one-hundred
percent of the time. Fear is woven into the very fiber of
our DNA-perhaps from the burning times (fifteenth to seventeenth
centuries Europe)." Women were tortured during the burning
times, and their courage was ripped away. Women were made
to mistrust each other. She says, "But I do think one of the
most courageous things we can do is to realize that we may
have to re-choose and re-choose and re-choose to consciously
act in new ways. Every once in a while we'll say, 'Hey, I
just did that spontaneously.' Then we should congratulate
ourselves, underscoring the behavior so that we'll be more
likely to choose it again when presented with similar circumstances
or feelings." With this approach women can erase the mistrust
that was imprinted into our souls through torment, and trust
each other again. To love each other is all there is time
for.
At the moment you realize courage, you become fully identified
with it. This connection reinforces your courage. Eventually,
you will consciously feel the kinship, recognize the language,
and realize you are living courageously.
I Want My Dream Back!
As a young girl, you had a dream about your future. But, perhaps
the winds of fate blew you off course. The truth is, your
life's journey depends on how closely your inner map matches
the language of your outer reality. Surrendering some of your
personality defenses such as pride, blame, humiliation, or
greed, can facilitate change. The ultimate purpose of such
surrender is to heal your judgments about yourself and see
yourself anew. The fundamental goal: seek endless compassion,
diminish old assessments, and use courage as a personal compass
to direct your choices. Each day contributes in a meaningful
way to the vision of your whole life. Manifesting your personal
vision conveys courage.
By owning and applying courage, women can make choices that
lead to more satisfying lives as well as empowering themselves
to make a significant impact on the lives of their daughters,
nieces, students, or other women in their lives. Recapturing
the original meaning of courage—to act from one's heart—can
stimulate your resolve in daily life. Thoele says, "The most
courageous thing for us women to do is unearth our own authenticity
with love, compassion, and gentleness. We need to learn to
live gently with others and ourselves (although not wimpily).
Doing so makes us stronger.
Making choices that expand our lives offers a richness of
living—a different way of moving through life. It is
the difference between living narrowly or broadly. Issues
that arise in our lives do not announce they are coming. We
must make choices. Embracing supportive virtues such as courage
guides us down a path that allows us to live our own truth.
The Face of Courage
Courage exhibits four distinct faces:
- Courage is an invisible shield of the heart offering
us choices on how to create our lives. It can be called
upon when facing any situation.
- Courage is a self-generated perspective available
to each of us and providing the strength to take whatever
action we desire.
- Courage is a support that strengthens our posture
as we walk through life. Embracing its language provides
a broad array of choices that allows us to create our lives
in a different way.
- Courage is a tool wielded by the heart and drawn
upon to approach the difficulties that arise in life.
Life's
Challenges
The faces of courage change with the circumstances in our life.
In Chapter Three, you read about Myrna's military experience
in Desert Storm. In the military she used courage as a shield
to protect herself from the human suffering she witnessed. Once
retired from the Army she faced a new challenge—motherhood.
Again, she drew upon her courage to support her in this new
challenge. While both responsibilities were different, fear
and anxiety accompanied each. With motherhood, she constantly
questioned herself: "Am I feeding my daughter right?" "Am I
holding her correctly?" "Am I responding quickly enough when
she cries?" and "Am I interpreting her cry right?" Myrna wanted
to fulfill to her daughter's needs, but her anxiety was extreme,
particularly when the reason for the baby's crying could not
be determined.
Myrna discovered that her courage was readily available to meet
the challenge of motherhood. She said, "I could continue experiencing
feelings of self-doubt, or I could be courageous and do the
best I could." She coached herself to review the internal voice
of self-doubt. She said, "That's where the choice aspect comes
in. Was I courageous or not? I would make the choice to be courageous—except
for the days when I chose not to. On those days I would sit
myself down and cry with the baby. But I did it consciously!"
To be courageous or not is a choice. When you are at choice
with courage, there is more of you.
Myrna has learned to recognize her emotions and their effect
on her choices. She is able to identify the steps she needs
to take to improve her situation, such as when to admit she
is at her wits end and ask her husband for help. She knows her
strengths and limitations. She has the determination and commitment
to get a job done. These competencies are the building blocks
to courage. Myrna says, "When I am courageous, I know what I
want to do; I know there are obstacles, but my courage gets
me through. That's where I pull from my intelligence, my motivation,
and everything else." The two components of courage for her
are self-awareness and choice.
While working full time, Myrna attends graduate school to complete
a master's program in counseling, and does not make excuses
for not being a perfect new mom. After all, it's a hard job.
But she recognizes and calls upon her courage when the going
gets tough. And she intends to structure a language that conveys
and distinguishes courage for her daughter, believing that utilizing
courage builds character.
Like Dorothy in Oz, we travel down the uncertain road of life.
If we are attentive to the lessons learned in each new experience,
we can activate our innate feminine energy that enables us to
face challenges and to respond appropriately in accepting new
opportunities. We do not want to fall asleep in the poppy field
and later wonder if we missed our higher purpose. George Konrad
said, "Courage is only an accumulation of small steps." At the
end of the journey, our words, our choices, and our actions
reveal whether we followed our hearts.
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