Courage. Another essential state for healing.
A short while ago, we began a series of articles exploring different states that are helpful for healing, starting with the state of engagement. Today we'll explore the state we call courage.
The word courage comes from the Latin root word for heart. In today's modern French language, the word "coeur" means heart. When a person acts courageously, we may say that they have a lot of heart.
You might wonder what courage has to do with healing, but it's really simple. One of the main reasons people get in trouble in any area of life (including the area of health and well-being) is that they fall prey to the emotion of fear.
Courage, by definitition, is firmness of mind or will in the face of danger or difficulty.
Danger or difficulty do not have to be objectively real. In fact, they often are not. Danger is often only dangerous when it's perceived that way by an individual. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. When it comes to fear, perception rules.
Just yesterday, I read an interesting article on perception and risk-taking by author Robert Kiyosaki. In the article, he quotes a statistic that the US death rate from heart attack in the year 2003 was 685,089. The death rate from shark attack for that same year was 1.
Now ask yourself Kiyosaki's question: Which are you more afraid of -- a shark or a large order of fries?
Funny, isn't it? The average person would likely say he's more afraid of a shark than of an order of french fries. But check it out! It's easy enough to see that the average person is more likely to die of a heart attack than a shark attack. Consumption of fried foods has been linked with heart disease. So rightfully, we should be more concerned about the fries.
As I said, perception rules.
Now, back to our conversation about courage.
If you remember back to the Holistic Health and Language Graphic Display from the Word Cures website, you'll recall that the very beginning of a health decay cycle starts with three things: fallacies, errors, and mistakes.
Now put yourself in this position. You grew up in limited circumstances. We all did, you know. Our parents and culture could only teach us what they knew. Nobody knows everything. So you grew up in limited circumstances.
One day, those limitations began to show. Something happens. A situation, perhaps, where the old teaching doesn't quite fill the bill. You need to learn something new. You have a choice: blaze a new trail, or keep doing the same old stuff ... even though it's not working.
Now some people grew up in families where creativity was encouraged. So those people might choose to blaze a new trail without thinking twice.
But others did not. We grew up in families where the old way was considered the best way. Blazing a new trail would mean challenging everything you thought you knew about how things happen in the world. That would very likely cause fear.
Fear of challenging the old ways strikes hard. Yet unless you do it, you can count on producing those fallacies, errors, and mistakes that lead down the slippery slope to ill health.
What gets you past the fear?
One thing.
Courage.
Courage is the state that enables you to make a choice because you know it's the best choice in the moment -- even though you're afraid of what the consequences might be. If you look closely, I'm confident that you'll find courage behind nearly any major healing effort.
Elizabeth Eckert can help you explore how simple everyday choices create health — or undermine even the best of intentions. With a background that ranges from energy medicine to structural bodywork to developmental psychology, this "Stick-To-It Coach" has the experience to support you in creating the healthiest possible expression of — you!
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