HOW TO BUILD COURAGE<\/p>\n
Those of us past the age of two have probably
\nexperienced things not working out the way we wish they
\nhad.<\/p>\n
Maybe you’re the exception? <\/p>\n
If you’ve taken what felt like big risks–trusted in
\nyour ability to detect bright opportunities despite the
\ndoubts of others around you–maybe they’ve always
\npanned out for you.<\/p>\n
Maybe you’ve never lost a lot of money in an
\n investment.<\/p>\n
Maybe your relationships have all been fun and
\n rewarding, and you’ve never had a broken heart.<\/p>\n
Maybe you’ve never gotten injured in some physical
\n activity that others thought was dangerous, or
\n never gotten sick when you’ve exposed yourself to
\n others who were.<\/p>\n
Me, I’m what I’ve decided to call “adventurous.” It
\ntakes the sting out of having had plenty of experiences
\nthat–at least at the time–felt like terrible losses,
\nbig mistakes, stupid decisions, humiliating failures.<\/p>\n
Yup, I’ve trusted thieves, believed in scams, put my
\nfaith in liars, and tried hard to get love from people
\nwho weren’t available to give it. <\/p>\n
And plenty of times, I’ve found myself without an ounce
\nof courage to pick myself up and face future
\npossibility instead of staring at past failure.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, I’ve learned some things about building
\ncourage.<\/p>\n
The definition of courage that helps me is “willingness
\nto turn one’s attention toward opportunities for
\nencouragement despite the size, frequency, or intensity
\nof opportunities for discouragement.”<\/p>\n
To build courage is simply to practice turning your
\nattention toward opportunities for encouragement, no
\nmatter what.<\/p>\n
Opportunities for encouragement might be writing or
\ntalking to yourself. They might be reading something
\npositive. Or, calling a friend who’s good at reminding
\nyou that your discouragement is only the temporary
\nresult of you obsessing about things you don’t want.<\/p>\n
I like to reframe my situation with humor, whenever I
\npossibly can. I just widen back and imagine the comical
\nstory I’ll be able to tell about myself later. Or make
\nfaces in the mirror.<\/p>\n
Even better than focusing on myself is to find someone
\nelse to appreciate. <\/p>\n
It’s tempting sometimes to pull ourselves up by finding
\nothers who need encouragement, and offering it to them.
\nUnfortunately, this can result in a habit of “rescuing”
\nothers in order to feel good about ourselves. <\/p>\n
That can quickly create a sticky pattern of reinforcing
\nthe neediness of others, rather than really lifting
\neveryone by appreciating their strengths, talents, good
\ndeeds, and wins. Go for the win-win!<\/p>\n
Is there a situation you’re in, in which courage is
\nrequired?<\/p>\n
Here’s me, cheeering for you: Take heart! You can do
\nit!<\/p>\n
Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOW TO BUILD COURAGE Those of us past the age of two have probably experienced things not working out the way we wish they had. Maybe you’re the exception? If you’ve taken what felt like big risks–trusted in your ability to detect bright opportunities despite the doubts of others around you–maybe they’ve always panned out… Continue reading How to Build Courage<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-healing","category-love-and-relationships","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/happyhealthsystem.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}