Our Journey Around The Courage Room

 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 may be transformed. 

When people come to me for therapy or clincial hypnosis, the truth is that they bring in their solutions as much as their problems. The problematic habits we develop (even habit of mind and body that feel like they’re built-in) have their roots in our attempts to feel better. This is part of the human puzzle; it’s also the way forward.

Many compulsive behaviours become self-harming. In the short term, these behaviours may feel soothing, an ideal escape.

In the long term, they become sources of problems themselves: addictions, disappearing/running away, sexually acting out. (The list is as varied as we are as individuals.) ‘Just giving in’ to keep the peace with abusive relatives, lovers, bosses is another self-harming behaviour meant to make life easier . . . These are or were ways of managing difficult problems. When these behaviours begin (often, though not always, in childhood) they may be a matter of psychic and even physical survival.

GUESS WHAT? ALL our patterns, habits and self-beliefs originate as neural pathways in our brains. And we can make NEW PATHS. We can change our brains. More easily than most people think.

REALLY!

(If you’re interested in working with me one-on-one in therapy or hypnotherapy, delving into All The Things in supported, aligned way, read more here.) OEI is one of the fundamental ways that I help people change their brains. People I work with experience these changes in the very first session. It’s not magic, it’s neuroscience.

And you already KNOW how changeable your brain is. As you grew up—the process of a lifetime—you’ve learned, adopted and stepped into new skills for living. Think about it: you’ve been learning your whole life.

Me, too. It’s what our brains are designed for: small and large change and new experiences.

My Own Path: some personal history

In my twenties and thirties, the path to courage was writing & learning in other cultures. The record of this began in Touch The Dragon and continued through my other books. A few 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, motherhood and hidden trauma and of course 3) my complicated family (Grace and Poison, Come Cold River, and my book-in-progress).

During my later thirties and forties, 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 have always inspired me. Their courage, pain, and ability to create and to keep going, growing, led me towards a new career in therapeutic practice. My own courage, pain and ability to create led me there, too. (People who know my books are familiar with the depth of these personal explorations.)

My own healing at the personal level was a fundamental part of my therapeutic education: the curriculum involved being in the same Group Therapy training cohort for FIVE YEARS. Panayeia mou, as we say in Greek (Holy Mother!) We got into EVERY F-ING THING ever, and grew together.

As I became healthier, I shed relationships and ways of being that no longer reflected who I was. So my world and language changed again, though my countries—Canada and Greece—stayed the same this time. My training as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist took over 6 years. And it’s ongoing—it’s an open field, forest and jungle of learning. I’m fascinated by and trained in applied neuroscience and biomechanics; ALL my healing work involves clear, comprehensible information about essential brain health practices.

The strands of creativity, healing and growth take a lifetime to braid together. We who receive a lifetime are lucky to experience this. At the spiritual level, simply to be alive—to have been called forth, into being, and being-ness throughout these years—is a mystery and a blessing. Every day, every moment.

Bless you!

I love this ‘new’ work, which I’ve now been doing (in one form or another) for close to ten 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, no matter where we are.