Power of Courage

It's all well and good to show up and have a positive attitude, but it's another thing to actually get the job done. This month's lesson addresses follow-through and responsibility. Using your personal willpower to accomplish whatever it is that you decided to put your energy into.

Someone who wants to work on their physical fitness isn't going to accomplish this by sitting at home all day without getting any form of exercise, nor will they see results they're looking for by completing a single workout. Yet by disciplining ourselves into coming back to the goal over and over again, it is possible to achieve a great many things. Where would we be if the sun didn't continue to rise every day?

This Power is represented by the balance between Pride and Shame, for humility plays a large role when it comes to Courage. Sometimes we can avoid trying new things to avoid looking silly or out of concern for failure, missing out on opportunities to discover new skills and interests.

Courage can be very playful! A child doesn't get overly caught up in how good they are at something when they're making believe, they simply enjoy being in the moment and pretending that they're a variety of different roles. By "acting as though" they can try out different scenarios and relationships. As adults, we encourage this kind of imaginative fun, however don't always feel comfortable offering this same level of support when it comes to be playful in our own lives.

Concern for embarrassment can cause many to shy away from trying out a new role, so it is courageous of us when we are able to be self-encouraging toward our interests and don't give up on what strikes our fires of passion. Fire being the primary element of this energy! Rather than comparing ourselves to how somebody else may be performing, we can boldly enjoy the adventures of our own lives.

I don't have to feel "less than" just because I'm not able to do certain things the same way as someone else, nor am I "greater than" anyone if I seem to have more of a grasp of something than they do. We are all gifted with strengths and struggles that give us a place and purpose to work with and teach us many lessons. The power of courage is associated with the color Yellow, held primarily in the Solar Plexus and linked with the concept of judgement. How do we put ourselves above or below one another?

Finding balance and moderation is a lot like trying to manage equity between people. We are all different, and therefor have different needs. Sometimes we may receive more or less of something in order to maintain a certain sense of fairness. You, then me. Like taking steps forward left, right, left, right, rather than hopping with both feet to get around. That would not be entirely practical, and is inevitably more exhausting than simply strolling down the road one foot in front of the other. I enjoy the equitable analogy of three people (one tall, one short, and one in-between) standing next to three crates near a fence and wishing to see what's on the other side. The short person needs to stand on two crates in order to see over the fence. The person who is in-between in height only needs the last one. The tall person doesn't need any at all in order to catch the view, and all are able to see perfectly what's happening across the way. This is how "equality" can often times not be the most fair or equitable outcome of any given situation, for if each of these people received only one crate, someone would have been left out for no reason.

"Done is better than good." There may always be a time and place to leave things off, but to continually move on from things that are partially finished is an example of how this energy can be under-active in our lives, while being an over-perfectionist, nitpicking all the time to the point of constant anxiety or spreading ourselves thin taking on too much or not being able to say "no" to others demonstrates an over-activity.

This decisive energy is about discerning what we say yes to and what we say no to. In order to moderate ourselves, we must be able to discriminate against what doesn't serve our goals. What kind of foods to we consume? Where are we putting our money? We vote with our time, attention, and dollars, and every little bit adds up. Are we making conscious decisions about how we behave or mindlessly giving our power away? It would be silly to mix red and blue paint together and then get upset when it creates purple when we were hoping to create green, but if we aren't being mindful of utilizing correct combinations to support the outcomes we desire, these are the kinds of unsatisfactory results that we'll be met with.

When we pay attention to the choices at hand, whether we like the options or not, we are embracing the fact that we do have a say in our own lives and the courageous power to influence the future by dealing in the present now. We cannot blame somebody else for what we say and do, or the opportunities we choose to let pass us by, or choose in favor of another. We cannot always control the world around us, but we do have the ability to control how we respond. Courage is controlling ourselves with humility, rather than letting our pride or shame rule how we posture ourselves.

What kind of posture do you take in your life? Both in how you hold your spine/the rest of your body, as well as how you conduct yourself. To posture yourself as "weak" or "no good" will be presented as such to others, while taking on the character of someone with a humble yet brilliant disposition will make people want to get to know who that soulful individual is. Never feel so ashamed that you hide that amazing self of yours away from the world! You are as luminous as all that lights up the sky.