Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Courage

Courage takes many forms, and we all must show it at times in our lives. Even if it's something like facing up to removing a spider from a room when your're afraid of the things, or standing on the edge of a cliff when you have vertigo, you have to use courage.

To me the definition of courage is being afraid but going on anyway. Foolhardiness is not courage, it's being unafraid when you really should be. I feel that I lack courage, I have had to fight myself to do many things in my life. When I was younger I was paralysingly shy, and I did not make myself do things, I just avoided them. In the end of course I had to face people when I started working, and I learned how to put on a very convincing mask.

Change as those who read regularly is another thing I am not good at and indeed am afraid of. Change and losing control of a situation is one of my issues, and one of my fears. People are so unpredictable and I really hate that! So I have been pushed by life to change my entire world and to do so without any knowledge of what will happen - which to me is like jumping off a building without a safety net or out of an aeroplane without a parachute. I don't feel like I am displaying courage. I feel that I am being a whiny child!

But I really have not had to display true courage in the face of huge odds. I do not live in a war zone, I do have a roof over my head. Sure my future is uncertain but I am not afraid of being homeless. Just afraid of total change and not being in control which is not that big a deal really.

Have you ever met someone and felt immediately that you have known that person forever? This person feels so familiar, you react to him or her as to an old old friend. The prevailing theory on why this happens is that you are meeting someone from a past life, or someone that your soul recognises. I don't know if this is so, I am not a philosopher or a scientist. But I have met people I have felt that I have recognised even though I have never seen them before, from time to time in my life.

Most recently it is a young woman who is fighting the battle of her life with a courage and grace that takes my breath away. She is thousands of miles away, yet I feel that I have known her all of her life, indeed all of my life. I don't know if I knew her in a past life, or if in this life I have been sent to give her support and she has been sent to teach me another lesson in humility. For surely I feel humble in the face of her courage and strength.

She fights, she has been fighting for months. Her medical treatment leaves her ill and suffering. Yet she gets up each day and fights again. She suffers pain and sickness and all the side effects of her treatment and she smiles. Sure she feels the loss of femininity with the loss of her hair. But she jokes about it. And sure she has times of intense sadness as would anyone. But this remarkable, courageous, strong woman picks herself up time and time again. She subjects herself to her treatment and jokes about the side effects. She fights, every minute of every day and I am humble in the face of her courage.

My troubles are small, so small as to be completely insignificant. If I were granted one wish it would be to heal this lovely woman, to let her have the happy and pain free life she deserves. I believe she will win this fight - there is no room at all for any negative thinking here from anyone. Bathe her in positive belief that she will recover, give her every chance. She will win this fight, and she will come out of it an even stronger and more graceful person than she is now. She has much to offer the world when all of this is over :)





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