Courage, My Love! (how I got here)

The word courage originally comes from word for heart--Latin cor and the Greek kar. In many cultures around the world, the heart is associated with emotional expression and personal truth. Corage migrated to English in the Middle Ages, where it came to mean any emotion in one’s heart-mind. 

That’s right: any emotion, even ‘negative’ ones. Corage didn’t only mean ‘a brave heart’ and ‘fearlessness.’ It also meant a sad, wicked, prideful, jealous, pained heart. It meant everything that a human heart could contain! 

And isn’t it that the truth? Even our hard, angry and fearful parts are the raw ingredients of courage. I know this from personal experience: those parts can be transformed. And we so often adopted those behaviours TO SURVIVE. Right?

When people come to me for therapy OR hypnotherapy, the truth is that they bring in their SOLUTIONS as much as their ‘problems.’ The self-destructive stuff we do usually arises from our attempts to MAKE IT BETTER. Overeating. Addictions. Disappearing. Running away. Sexually acting out. Giving in to abusive relatives, lovers, bosses. These are or were all ways of managing difficult problems, even of surviving adverse experiences.

As we grow up—the process of a lifetime—we can learn, adopt and step into new skills for living. Just think about it: you’ve been learning YOUR WHOLE LIFE. Me, too. OUR BRAINS-BODIES-SPIRITS WERE DESIGNED FOR THIS.

In my twenties and thirties, the path to courage was writing and living & learning in other cultures (in Touch The Dragon . Some of my greatest teachers have been 1) an old Greek shepherd (in One Room in a Castle) 2) former political prisoners, refugees and Buddhist monks (Myanmar) (in The Lizard Cage, Burmese Lessons, The Border Surrounds Us ) desire and trauma (all of my books, in a way, but especially The Change Room, a more recent book about sexuality and hidden trauma 3) my complicated family (Grace and Poison, Come Cold River, and my book-in-progress).

In my thirties and forties, so many of my writing students at both the graduate and undergraduate level were wrestling with and writing about traumatic family or political histories. My students became my teachers. Their courage, pain, and glorious ability to create and to keep going, growing, making—I learned from every single one of them. They helped me to turn again to my family history, which I’ve wrestled with & explored all my life, especially in my poetry.

There I was, back at the beginning. After a few personal crises—especially gross betrayals by people I’d thought were my friends—I had no choice but to dive once more, and more deeply, into the painful, often terrifying emotions and events of my childhood. Sexual trauma. Religious trauma. Family rupture. Poverty. Suicide. Addiction.

It was MESSY. I did more healing. I stopped pretending in every area of my life. I stopped lying. It was GLORIOUS. I swore and cried a lot. I found people. I lost people. It was humbling and awkward—much like learning a new language.

I became more conscious about courage as I shed relationships and ways of being—relationships to my self—that no longer reflected who I was, who I wanted to become. Thus my world and language changed again, even though my countries—Canada and Greece—stayed the same this time. I retrained as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist.

The languages of healing take a lifetime to learn. I love this ‘new’ work, which I’ve now been doing for almost five years. I share this journey with you because in the process of healing—or teaching, or writing—I recognize that we are fellow travellers in this life.

New experiences, new places, new languages change our brains: they teach us fresh ways of being, becoming and thinking.

so does going for a daily walk, learning new yoga moves, or Touching beloved people & animals.

Rubbing your nose also stimulates your brain! (Weird & True!)

Change and creativity are built into our lives.

Some of our early patterns of experience become life habits. Early trauma and attachment wounds live on in our nervous systems, bodies and brains . . . Often without wanting to, we re-enact them. They become our unconscious habits of being.

Hiding. Intense struggles with fear, anger, pain. procrastination. not-good-enoughness. stuckness.

The good news is: we can learn NEW habits of being.

Neuroscience has finally caught up with ancient eastern meditation, breath, and body work in declaring that brain plasticity is far greater than previously imagined. We learn, change and reconnect throughout our lives. That’s why community engagement is an important part of my life’s work.

If any of this resonates, work with me one-on-one. Read my books (from a bookshop or from your library) or my blog posts here. AND, always, connect with the power of your own voice, body, mind, spirit. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.

I explore the intersection of creativity & healing in community in The Courageous Writers’ Academy twice a year, my group-coaching experience for writers of all kinds, and I’m presently re-designing The Courage Room membership to be a book club . . .

Onward, friend. You can do it. What’s the next smallest thing you can do to step into the change you desire?