Take a deep breath in through your nose.
Imagine pulling it all the way down towards your heart.
Then let it go.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
I've been thinking about heart recently.
Because I found a perfect heart shape when I cut into a watermelon this week.
I was busy enough that I was tempted to smile and then promptly throw it in the garbage.
But I have begun to take coincidences very seriously.
So,
I sat down and I thought about heart.
Which made me think about courage.
And then I came upon something Robert Frost once said.
The saddest thing in life is that the best thing in it should be courage.
Inhale.
Exhale.
We all know what we humans are capable of.
So Frost is right.
Life often requires a grim kind of courage.
And as such,
We often celebrate those who step up and face the danger and destruction.
Inhale.
Exhale.
And yet,
Isn't the opposite also true?
The best thing in life is that the best thing in life is courage.
To understand what I mean,
We need to do what I love to do.
Which is look at the backstory of a word.
Courage is an old French word that meant the heart as the seat of feeling.
The heart,
Not the brain,
As the seat of thought.
It also referred to a person's spirit or temperament.
Once the word moved to Old English,
It started to change to our more familiar definition.
Bravery,
That quality of mind which shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking.
Inhale.
Exhale.
What has happened over the centuries is that courage has become linked with the hard and the horrible and the extraordinary.
When in fact,
Its origins were in the everyday and the ordinary.
Inhale.
Exhale.
In everyday life,
We experience pleasure and pain,
Fear and grief,
Joy and rage,
Boredom and delight.
And all of that can be terrifying and overwhelming.
And yet,
Have you ever had dental work done?
If so,
You know how wrong it feels to be numb.
Inhale.
Exhale.
To live with courage is to feel it all.
To trust that we can sit with whatever arises and it will pass.
Inhale.
Exhale.
To live with courage is also to let our emotions be a part of our decision making strategies.
How does something feel?
It is not weak to ask that question.
It's fecking courageous and it's even more courageous to listen for the actual answer.
Inhale.
Exhale.
To live with courage is to bring our spirit into the light.
To live out who we are with joy rather than shame.
If you ask me,
Being our awkward and strange and authentic self is one of the most courageous things we can do.
Inhale.
Exhale.
So how about we live,
We feel,
We act,
We shine,
And we live courageously into the mantra love,
Not fear.
I bet if we all tried that,
It would be easier than ever to live light.
