Emotional Courage

We all know that life is a mixed bag. No matter how much we learn or experience, life continues to both delight and challenge us. Does it get any easier to deal with the tough stuff? Unfortunately, it does not seem so :( ... but we can certainly work to achieve a healthier mindset and deeper strength of character from which to draw. Rebecca Rafael, a savvy Vancouver therapist, talks about the importance of cultivating emotional courage so that we may achieve peace in our lives and authentic confidence in ourselves.

Emotional courage is being open to feeling the full spectrum of emotional experience, both positive and negative. Our emotions are an evolutionary adaptation to help support our survival and according to Elie Weisel, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." Unfortunately, we cannot have only positive emotions, but we can choose our attentional focus. We can take our attention away from fear and focus instead on experiences associated with joy or "flow" to create renewed energy in our lives. Shifting our focus to gratitude may be one of the easiest ways to diminish fears that may result in "worry". Feelings come into play when our emotions cross the threshold from unconscious to conscious awareness and we seek to understand, label, express, suppress and/or make choices based on those emotions. According to lionswhiskers.com we need to be willing to be vulnerable, truthful, and aware of the conscious experience of our core emotions, which we think about and express as feelings. When we choose to ignore, suppress, or deny our emotions, we risk a loss of insight, which may lead to faulty decision-making and compromise our health and well being. Emotional courage means loving ourselves, being proud of ourselves and believing that we are worthy of love and happiness - essentially we should be striving for self-realization, self-acceptance and personal fulfillment. Emotional courage requires that we dig around a little and uproot the tangible and intangible sources of fear that cause us anxiety, worry, sorrow and depression and poison our ability to experience joy. In summary, emotional courage is achieving unconditional happiness within ourselves and with our lives.

Emotional courage looks like:
* Forgiving someone you love
* Laughing so hard you cry
* Expressing gratitude
* Crying without embarrassment
* Helping a stranger who is in distress
* Maintaining eye contact and smiling
* Public displays of affection
* Working as a healing professional
* Confronting a family member who is living in an unhealthy way

Lack of emotional courage looks like:
* Looking away and avoiding eye contact
* Walking away from an emotional situation
* Covering up or suppressing an emotional response
* Dismissing someone else's emotional response
* Begrudging someone else's success or happiness
* Embracing the victim role
* Numbing feelings through overuse of drugs, alcohol etc.
* Losing one's temper and lashing out at others
* Blaming others
* Avoiding self-reflection, even after a loved one expresses concern
* Never being willing to be alone
* Checking out of one's life through excessive TV watching, shopping etc.

Emotional courage sounds like:
* I can do it
* I love_____ about you
* Thank you
* I'm angry right now, but I know it won't last forever
* I can see you're angry with me right now and that's ok
* I'm good at_____
* I feel______
* I love you
* Are you okay? Would you like to talk?
* Let me help you
* I am worthy of love

Lack of emotional courage sounds like:
* I don't like talking about my feelings
* Boys don't cry
* I never get angry
* I'm bored
* Get over it
* You're fine
* Grow up
* Don't be sad. I hate it when you're sad
* I can't
* I won't talk until you control yourself
* You're getting carried away again as usual
* Why do good things always happen to other people
* It'll just make me feel worse to talk about it and I don't want to feel that

Given that we all know tough times are inevitable, maybe it would be cool to allow for it... expect and prepare for the challenges to come.... and train as though we were training for a marathon.. and look at some of these statements once in a while... so that when the wave crashes, we can know that we've thought ahead and we will tell ourselves that we will find a way through, we will survive and we will decide to be the better for it.. and maybe find the people we love, tell them we love them and tell ourselves that we are ok no matter what.. and that something great is bound to be next:) Hugs.

Blessings,

Chatgirl