Welcome to Signal Checks.
I'm Meredith Fesh.
This is a small pause to notice what's creating noise in your life so you can steady the signal.
This episode,
I'm gonna talk about the courage we don't count.
I was recently in a room of women and I asked them to rate their courage on a scale of one to 10.
There were a few sevens.
There's one five and a half.
Nobody gave herself a 10.
Which was interesting because these were women who had navigated all kinds of difficult things in their lives.
But when we hear that word courage,
Most of us think only of the big moments.
Like leaving a marriage or asking for a promotion,
Maybe quitting a job.
Those are the moments that become part of our story we tell about our lives.
But we don't always count the quieter ones.
Like saying no when someone might be disappointed.
Or admitting we've changed our mind.
Owning a mistake.
Or letting ourselves want something different than what we wanted 10 years ago.
Or even the courage it takes to live an ordinary Tuesday.
And when we don't count those moments,
It's easy to conclude that we're not particularly courageous.
And I wonder if we're just grading ourselves on the wrong things.
There's a way of understanding courage that I keep coming back to,
And it's from the poet Mark Nepo.
He says the word courage traces back to the Latin core,
Meaning heart.
And the original use of the word courage means to stand by one's core.
So instead of asking,
Am I brave enough?
We might ask.
What in me needs me to stand by it?
Maybe it's a truth you've been reluctant to say out loud,
A boundary you've talked yourself out of.
Maybe it's a desire that doesn't make much sense on paper.
Or a part of yourself that's been waiting patiently while you take care of everybody else.
Of course,
Standing by ourselves can be surprisingly difficult.
Especially when we're worried about being judged or getting it wrong.
I recently learned the phrase,
A strong back and soft front,
From the meditation teacher Tara Brock.
A strong back.
Lets us hold a boundary and trust our own read on things.
A soft front keeps us open to our feelings and to other people.
We need both.
But under pressure we often lose one or the other.
Some of us harden.
We tighten our jaw,
We brace our shoulders,
We dig in,
We get really good at defending our position.
And that's the armor.
And sometimes that armor looks like strength from the outside.
While others of us lose our back.
Some of us.
Lose that front where we agree,
But don't really agree.
We make sure everyone else is comfortable.
We stay open to everyone else's needs,
But we might lose contact with our own.
And of course,
We can do both.
Depending on the day.
Both are ways we've learned to protect ourselves.
And they make sense.
They can also make it harder to hear what we actually want.
So here's a question worth sitting with.
When something matters to you.
Do you tend to armor up?
Or give yourself away.
And just for a moment,
Just notice your body.
Notice your back.
Your shoulders.
Your chest,
Your belly.
Is there somewhere you're holding a little tightly?
Your jaw,
Maybe it's clenched,
Maybe you're holding your breath or perhaps you're noticing yourself kind of making yourself smaller.
Imagine a little support.
Through your spine.
Not stiffening,
Just.
.
.
Remembering your back is there.
Vertebrae stacked on vertebra.
Giving you the structure.
Now see if there's some place in the front that you can soften.
Maybe it's your forehead.
Or even your gaze.
A strong back.
A soft front.
What might change if you could bring a little more of both into something you're in the middle of right now?
And perhaps you've already done this more often than you realize.
Remember those women I asked to rate their courage after we spent some time talking about the big C courage and the little C courage in our lives?
Most of them raised their score.
They'd finally started counting what was already there.
And I've been thinking about that ever since.
How easily we overlook our own courage.
And how much energy we spend measuring ourselves against some imagined version of who we think we should be.
Maybe we could be a little less severe in our grading.
What if we gave ourselves the credit for the things that never make it into the story?
The conversation we finally had,
The truth we told,
Even if it was quietly.
And perhaps with a little more compassion for ourselves.
We'd find it easier to stand by ourselves now.
Not with the armor.
And not by abandoning ourselves.
But with a strong back.
And a soft front.
So I'll leave you with this question.
What in you is asking to be stood by?
Maybe courage begins there with the willingness to be on your own side.
Thanks for spending these few minutes with me.
Until next time.
Keep listening to your own signal.
