Redefine Bravery.
When I was a young teenager I always faced the pressure from my peers to do things like drink or smoke or even go out when I didn't want to. I always chose otherwise because I didn't feel the desire to. Overtime my friends started to call me a COWARD because I wasn’t “brave” enough to do what they were doing. It made me feel like I was not fitting in because I was choosing what felt comfortable enough for me. Funny enough even when it did, the decision made me feel uncomfortable for the choice to do otherwise. My mom always told me “You don’t always have to be like everyone else. Do what brings you peace, your own peace.”
I know that severally many of us are made to feel un-brave, cowardly. People have different ideas about what’s brave. When you choose something that makes you comfortable, you have done the brave thing, because the brave thing is doing what your consciousness tells you to do. You don’t ask others what’s brave, you feel and know what’s brave. What you know to do might be the opposite of what others are telling you to do. It takes special bravery to honor yourself when the crowd is pressuring you not to. It’s easier just
to give in.
Stand strong in what you feel and know. To me, that’s the greatest bravery. That’s true confidence, which means loyalty to self. That’s what you move
through the world with, confidence. Regardless of what others are calling ‘brave’ at the moment: You stay loyal to yourself. If you keep living with confidence, the rest of your life will unfold exactly as it is meant to. It won’t always be comfortable. Some will recognize your brave; others won’t. Some will understand and like you; others won’t. But the way others respond to your confidence is not your business. Your business is to stay loyal to you. That way, you will always know that those who do like and love you are really your
people. You’ll never be forced to hide or act in order to keep people if you don’t hide or act to get them.
To be brave is to forsake all others to be true to yourself. That is the vow of a confident being.
Do not be divided between what you feel and know on the inside and what you say and do on the outside. Your selves should be integrated. You should have integrity to yourself above all.
So, my prayer for you my dear readers is to have courage.
I hope you have the courage to keep loving deeply in a world that sometimes fails to do so. In a generation that orders up attention like they order up a meal, in a generation that has started to love with one foot out the door, I hope you have the courage to believe that genuine connection still exists. And I hope you have the courage to stand up for that, to open yourself to it when you start to feel it bloom within the heart of you. I hope you have the courage to appreciate it for all that it is, to not approach it wearing a mask, to not try to desensitize yourself to it or play it cool. Please, I hope you have the courage to crash your heart into the people life gifts you. I hope you have the courage to believe that goodness still exists, that there are those who have the capacity to love the way you do, that there are those who will see you and grow you and teach you more about the world. I hope you have the courage to fight for connection. I hope you have the courage to go deeper. To never exist on the surface of your life, even if it’s easier or more convenient. At the end of the day you should leave this world with a heart that is worn out and soft all over. A heart that is bruised from loving, and feeling, and caring in the best way possible. At the end of the day, you should be proud of your inability to be anything but open to the world. You should be proud of who you are.
I hope you have the courage to do the hard work. I hope you have the courage to sit down with your demons, to befriend them; to look them in the face and to not feel fear. I hope you have the courage to stop picking or numbing or avoiding the wounds within, and I hope you choose to heal them instead. I hope you have the courage to understand yourself, fundamentally — to open up the deepest, darkest parts of your mind, to unhinge your ribcage revealing the gritty parts of your soul, the parts no one else claps for, and I hope you have the courage to clean them out. To forgive yourself for what you had to do to kill your sadness. To forgive yourself for the ways in which you didn’t fight for the person you were becoming. I hope you have the courage to nurture your pain, to not disregard it or sweep it under the rug of distraction or convenience. I hope you have the courage to heal yourself, even when it hurts.
I hope you have the courage to know when to end things. And I hope you have the courage to see endings as beautiful, transformative stepping stones. I hope you have the courage to let love, and opportunity move through you like rain. To not grip, or seek to change it, to not ask people or circumstances to be more than they can be for you. I hope you have the courage to see endings as the cornerstones of the chapters that changed you, without needing them to be a part of the rest of your story. And when that is done, I hope you have the courage to give yourself closure. To be your own home. To be your own safe place. I hope you have the courage to not let the losses destroy you, to not let them burrow into the heart of who you are and convince you that you failed, or that you are unworthy of the happiness you are standing up for in your life. I hope you have the courage to see the way in which you loved and tried and fought for something as a testament to just how deeply your capacity to feel is, just how beautiful moments can be when you appreciate them for what they were instead of nullifying them or letting them harden you to the world. Please, I hope you have the courage to move forward. I hope you have the courage to walk away with grace.
And as you move forward, I hope you have the courage to do things differently, to be the kind of person who takes the risk, to be the kind of person who leads with their heart and shows up in their life with a ruthless dedication to learning, and growing and enjoying the hell out of their moments here. I hope you have the courage to never let comfort or apprehension convince you that you are better off staying still. I hope you have the courage to trust the part of yourself that knows there’s more out there for you, the part of yourself that is easy to quiet when you’re trying to live by the rules and the expectations of a world that has bred so much dissatisfaction and sadness. I hope you have the courage to trust the part of yourself that seeks freedom from those trends, from those boundaries, and I hope you have the courage to go after whatever it is that genuinely makes you want to get up in the morning. I hope you have the courage to find the things in life that ignite you and deepen your understanding of the world and those within it. I hope you have the courage to fight for a future that inspires you, even if it doesn’t look the way you thought it would. I hope you have the courage to change. I hope you have the courage to trust in the person you’re becoming.
