The overlooked key to courage

Courage has two parts—the courage before the thing and then the courage after the thing.

The root of the word courage is cor, which means heart. To me, to operate from the heart means to operate with love. When putting myself out there in a way that feels vulnerable, I almost always need to remind myself that I am doing what I am doing for a bigger, more loving purpose. This is the only way I seem to be able to muster the courage to do it. I need to love myself and others enough to be willing to receive pushback, upset, envy, defensiveness, or any other projection I may receive in response. I choose to let my love be the thing that inspires me to take action despite the action moving me into the unknown.

However, the courage before taking action is only half of what we need to focus on to live lives centered in the heart. The other half of the equation is to keep our hearts open after the action so we can remain loving no matter what. Remember, we needed bravery in the first place because the outcome of the action was uncertain, and we might have received an unprefferable reaction. In the case of the less-than-desirable result coming to pass, it is so vital that we keep our courage present and stay loving to ourselves and others. If we do something bold, and it doesn’t turn out “well”, so we then become a jerk, then the courage didn’t work. Judging someone or making them wrong due to how they responded to your expression zaps the love right out of what we are creating. The key is having compassion and empathy for everyone, including ourselves, as we navigate the other side of taking non-attached action.

When we can work on connecting to love before we leap and reconnecting to it immediately after, we can truly live lives of the heart. Courage is a way of living, not a singular heavy lift.