Your Struggle Today, Gives You Strength For Tomorrow
It is human to be scared of taking risks. If I was on this rock wall, I would be terrified. Being scared is recognition of a choice. A choice to stay safe on the safe ground called your “Comfort Zone”, or to do something really, really brave. Comfort Zone’s create boundaries . . . , essentially prison walls where you feel enclosed and safe. But here is the thing about the boundaries and walls – they don’t let the fresh air in. They stifle life and smother you.
The thing about being BRAVE is it doesn’t come with the absence of fear and hurt. Bravery is the ability to look fear and hurt in the face and say move aside, you are in the way.
– Melissa Tumine
Inspiration is the breath of God. Being inspired, is life giving . . . , breathing Gods spirit deep into your soul. When we cross those boundaries of the comfort zone we soar . . . , flying we chase the wind, and touch the sky. This happens because our soul feels the prison bars bend and break when we courageously break out of the comfort zone. Can you remember the “first” times in your life? Your first step? Your first graded “A+” paper? When you road your bike without training wheels for the first time? Your first kiss? The first day at your first job? Your first child being born? Your first grandchild? Think about how your heart swells and bursts wide open. How you want to shout out to the world “Look at me! I did it!”. You don’t walk on the floor, you float. That is the feeling of inspiration, the breath of God. When was the last time you felt that? If it has been awhile, what could you do now, today, this week – what could you do for the first time that would make your heart beat fearlessly?
Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage and something good will come of it.
– Benjamin Mee
To put that into perspective, Bull Riding Championships are called an “8 second ride”. So 20 seconds can seem like forever, where you are doing something like that, it makes your heart pound. Have you ever did something and then said, “Oh my God what did I just say yes to?” Your destiny is deep within you. You have hidden it. You have to be brave enough to set it free. You hid it because it scared you. It meant that you were different. That you would be judged. That some people would walk away from you. Most of us don’t even see the full extent of our destiny. We got scared just by seeing the outline of it. You put limitations around it to cage it so that it didn’t escape. Don’t do that to yourself. Take the risk of letting it expand to its full glory.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
– Steve Jobs
Another kind of courage is not allowing anyone else to control who you are . . . , what you believe . . . , and what actions you choose to take in your life.
Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and résistance.
– Robert Kennedy
Taking a stand for yourself, for someone else is always scary. But what is so interesting is that if you were to see into the minds of a crowd watching a bully, most of the crowd will not agree with what is happening. They are all waiting for someone to take a stand. And once someone does take a stand, others in the crowd will join with them. They are just not brave enough to be the first person.
A totally different kind of courage is standing up to your own friends, your family, your tribe.
It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.
– Dumbledore, Harry Potter
These are people who you want to accept you, to love you. When you take a risk, that they are all telling you not to take, it feels like they are no longer your friends. You counted on their support and they withdrew it. As you travel down the path from who you are now, to who you think you can be, what you discover is that some friends will be left behind. Some friends may not understand, but they will still love and support you. You will also make some new friends who will join you on your journey. When you accept the responsibility for what is in your life currently, you are granted the power to change your life. Courage is letting go of what can’t be changed . . . , and the waking up to what can be.
The brave men did not kill the dragons. The brave men rode them.
– Game of Thrones
I love this! First of all I have always had an affinity with dragons. My personal dragons were imprisoned when I was young, because when I would get mad, my words would flame out of my mouth and burn people up. So I pushed the dragon deep down, so that no one would get hurt. When I finally released the dragon, I realized it was just protecting me from harm. So we learned together what was really harmful, and what wasn’t. We tamed the dragon flames. My dragon gives me both the freedom to be me, and the bravery to fight when I need to .
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
– Ambrose Redmoon
I always hated how fairy tales painted dragons as the bad thing that must be destroyed. Fear most of the time is a story that we tell ourselves. So to have courage, to be brave, we just have to tell ourselves a different story. That crossing the boundaries doesn’t have to be scary. That the feeling we get in our stomach doesn’t have to be fear, it can be anticipation.
At the edges of ancient maps they had “Beyond this place there be dragons” as a warning to not cross out of the boundary of the known world. The best part of any journey is all of the wild stuff that happens along our path, as we strike out past the boundaries. Be brave and go past the edge of the map, find the dragons and ride them..
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