To move forward from the last one sent to you, the Jeffrey Brantley & Wendy Millstine book used indicates regarding COURAGE the following:
Too often a difficult or challenging work situation evokes feelings or fear or self-doubt. Such feelings can derail or impair your ability to work effectively.
Real courage acknowledges fear, includes it, and acts effectively anyway.
When you feel yourself becoming derailed by fear or doubt, try the following practice:
1. Breathe or listen mindfully for about a minute.
2. Set your intention. For example, “May this practice give me strength and courage.”
3. Make room for any upset you feel. Name it. Allow it. Breathe mindfully with it.
4. Imagine that your body – outer and inner – is vast and steady, like a mountain.
5. The mountain withstands storms, fires, everything. Your upset is only a passing storm to the mountain.
6. If you like, repeat a word like “courage” or “steady” or “unshakable” quietly to yourself.
7. Feel the solid earth beneath you and the strong mountain within you.
As part of the Survivor’s Caucus Retreat this past Saturday, “courage” seemed like the defining word of the day as the 8 of us began redefining the goals of the Survivor’s Caucus with new leadership at hand and topics that we wanted to embark upon, including basically coming up with a goal of working towards a plan for “Stage II” or “Day After” for the survivors of domestic violence, our theme for this upcoming fiscal year. It is a huge goal that may have to be a goal better defined for the next 5 years and broken into steps for each year to get there, but it is a courageous step forward indeed (especially, if you relate courage as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary – “strength of mind to carry on in spite of danger”, the danger of the roadblocks we are likely to encounter on our journey). This is certainly true, too, of any survivor, and especially a survivor of domestic violence, as the danger that they have to face is eminent emotional and indeed physical harms that they encounter, along with the various roadblocks that are hurdled in efforts to seek safety for themselves, as well as their children. ~~ NEXT WEEK’s TOPIC: LET IT ALL GO. ~~
Some quotes to give fuel for thought about courageous acts:
“Yesterday, I dared to struggle. Today I dare to win.” ~ Bernadette Devlin
“Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow.” ~ Dorothy Thompson
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.” ~ Susan B. Anthony
