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The world has undergone a profound, accelerating and simultaneous change in the last few years. A pandemic, followed by a brace of wars (and potentially a third one on the horizon), a fragile world economy, a new world of work and the advent of AI have challenged our mental faculties and emotional equilibrium to the hilt. Our constitution wasn’t designed to deal with such an accelerating rate of change. Therefore, in order to deal with this age of uncertainty, we need to cultivate the value of courage that will help us adapt, be resilient and ultimately even flourish in these ever-changing times.
“When properly cultivated, courage can override anything else”
~ Tony Dickel, CEO, Transcend International
But how do you cultivate this all important value? Where do you start? Well, our point of view is that courage is a ‘molecular’ value (as most values are) and is a result of understanding and practising the core ‘atomic’ mental qualities of -
Presence - The ability to be aware of what we are thinking and feeling in this present moment - (This mental quality has been covered in a previous article which is linked here)
Patience - The ability to observe, without judgement or reaction, what we are experiencing in the moment. Just “being with it”.
Curiosity - The ability to question, again without judgement, what is driving our thoughts and feelings in the moment and to ask ourselves whether there are alternative ways to interpret the content of the moment? To understand what’s “going on” with “me” in the present moment. What is driving how I feel, now!
Trust - This is a “knowing” that the “story” that is driving our feelings (and therefore our actions) in the moment is, in some way, trying to “keep us safe”, but is not doing a great job! Often, the consequence of the action that we take because of the story we tell ourselves is more dangerous than that which it is trying to protect us from (which is generally not dangerous at all).
Acceptance - The ability to let go of resistance to that which we cannot influence and, instead of reacting emotionally, simply taking what action one can to deal with what we can actually to make things better or progress goals. It turns our attention to that which we can influence so we can let go of that which we can’t. Acceptance of what is happening right now is a precondition to changing what might happen in the future. Its opposite (resistance) implies we are already executing a “default” and often less than useful coping strategy which is often futile and doesn’t move us forward.
Letting Go - The ability to gently release unskillful or unproductive thoughts and feelings from our mental and emotional landscape. It is the ability to let go of thoughts and feelings, or at least let them be, as they are, rather than engaging or getting hooked into them (or, indeed, resisting them). Thoughts and feelings, on their own, cannot do any harm. Harm is done when we take “unskilful action” driven by such thoughts and feelings.
This is a first look into the quality of COURAGE. Over the next 2 to 3 newsletters we will continue addressing this important quality and will share practices to master this all essential VALUE.
(If you’re having trouble cultivating the quality of courage, CONNECT WITH US and we would be delighted to partner with you in your quest to live a COURAGEOUS life.
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