A new year has begun, giving us the gift of new beginnings and the opportunity to welcome courage into our lives. Your heart and soul need courage to build and enjoy the life you want.
Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is moving forward despite the fear. A great way to make it through the moments of fear is to focus on your heart. If the heart is saying “yes,” go forward. Trust that the path will unfold in front of you. Surrendering to the voice and guidance of your heart can be reassuring. So many people hold themselves back because they are afraid of making decisions without knowing the outcome. Later in life they end up sad and regretting that they didn’t go forward with their heart’s desire.
When I look back, I notice that the decisive moments of my life were filled with fear; the path ahead looked dark, scary, and unknown and I had no guaranties that things would work out for me. I left my country and my family at age 19. It was frightening, but my heart was reassuring me all the way that I made the right decision.
A life well lived demands courage from us all the time. For most of us courage begins when we start school as a young child, and we separate from our mother. We slowly adjust and grow so much with this experience; then we move to different schools and the change can be frightening. Getting a new job and getting married require a degree of courage.
Some of us decide to create our own business and that means that we are 100 percent responsible for our paycheck, which can create a great deal of fear. Personally, this was my scariest experience, but it has been a very rewarding journey in similar proportion and when I look back, I notice that I was receiving support all along the way. We don’t have to know how things will unfold, it will come to us; we just have to move forward and trust the process. Fear eventually dies down as we move forward.
We can find support to build courage through journaling, reflecting, and meditating. The voice of the heart grows stronger with these practices. Through journaling we can give life to our heart’s desires. Reflection helps us fine tune what we really want and are able to do. Through meditation we can live the experience as if it was our new reality, building self-confidence as we feel the outcome with our senses. All these tools help us build the courage needed to give life to our dreams. There is a wonderful book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, by Susan Jeffers, that provides tools and guidance on how to become comfortable with feeling the fear while you move forward with the things that scare you.
Every time you choose courage you build inner resilience to manage and conquer all the challenges that life gives you. In turn, that resilience allows you to expand into new horizons and to have the confidence that everything is going to work out just fine.
As we begin this new year, I want to encourage you to be courageous and create the beautiful life that you want and deserve. Give yourself permission to dream and know that you deserve it.
Veronica Correa, LCSW-C, is a licensed clinical social worker, certified hypnotherapist and life coach. To learn more about her work visit: www.thepersonalwellnesscenter.com or call 410-742-6016.
