Courage is not living without fear. Courage is being scared to death and doing the right thing anyway.
I love the above quote, if you think about it, it really is a very true quote. So many times, in my life I have heard, “he has a lot of courage, he must not be afraid of anything.” Or he is so courageous, nothing must scare him.” In reality when you really start to understand how our mind works and how the conscious and subconscious works and how what we say, hear and see affects us, we can all start to be courageous or fearless as everyone thinks.
Growing up I remember being courageous myself a few times, taking up for that girl when someone was messing with her, Joining the Army, moving to a new state and not knowing anyone, or even going on that job interview. There are so many people that are amazing people. We all know people like this, family, friends and colleagues that could be so much more and help so many more people, including themselves, if they would just live more courageously.
A few areas jump out at me when I was courageous. One in particular was when I received my teaching degree in El Paso Texas and got hired to come to Phoenix Arizona to teach. I knew one person in Arizona, and I was scared as heck. I had never been to Arizona; I didn’t know anything about Arizona but what I did know was that I had worked hard for this and I was going no matter what. I took the teaching certificate test and didn’t even know if I had passed or not, but I was going to Arizona despite everything, this was, in my mind, courage. I didn’t think about all the things that could go wrong, I just focused on the amazing feeling of being able to do what I loved and trained hard to do. I arrived in Arizona and everything worked out, 2 weeks after I arrived, I got my test scores and found out I had passed the test, I went on to become a successful teacher. Even after I was teaching, I still had many times where I had to be courageous, I was scared in so many ways, but I did what I knew was right and when the time came for me to talk about or do something the words and answers just came to me. While I am no longer teaching, at my own choice, to me that was courageous.
So many people just come up with excuses for why something will not work, I am not rich enough, I am too old, I don’t live in the right place, yada, yada, yada. Think about it, if you want something you will do whatever it takes to get it. How about when you were young and you wanted to meet that guy/girl, you did whatever it took to make it happen. You would stay late after school; you would just happen to go where they lived even though it was out of your way. You didn’t know what would happen if you did meet this person, or what may happen as you pursued meeting this person, you were not focused on that, you were just focused on the end goal, and it happened, why? Because you had courage to make it happen. There are numerous examples like this, I am sure numerous examples that happened to you. Since we know this is true, why do so many people live unhappy? Why do we long for so much more yet stay stuck in a job, relationship or place we don’t enjoy? The answer, courage, fear of what others may say, or the way others may act toward us if we do go for what we want.
There is no certain type, age, gender or race that fits into this category, there are people from all walks of life that live this way. There are also all walks of life that have taken the courage and are living a life they love. What separates the two? It’s all in the mind, the conscious and subconscious mind. All our habits and beliefs have been formed from everything we have seen, went through and were taught to believe since we were born. A series of patterns that we have formed over our lifetime that make us believe what is good and not good and not appropriate ways of doing things. Things such as getting a good job and making a lot of money and you will have an amazing life, go to school and get as much education as possible so you can make as much money as possible, fit in, follow the crowd, don’t take chances. The people that were teaching this and telling us this were not necessarily wrong, they were just trying to protect us, keep us safe, this is what they were taught and what they thought was the way to live. Why do so many of us continue to live like this?
It all comes down to beliefs, and what is going on inside of our minds. We all live in pictures, when you think of your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, that beautiful sports car you would like to have, immediately you see the picture of it.
It is important to understand that all that we have in our life is an image of what is in our mind, beliefs of what we know to be true or believe to be true. See there are 2 parts to the mind, the conscious and the subconscious mind. Our conscious mind is where everything that we see, do and experience goes first. The second part is the subconscious mind. This is the part of the mind that controls our behavior, forms our habits and ultimately controls how we live our life day to day. The conscious mind is the part of the mind that thinks, reasons, makes decisions about money, career, where we live, who we love, if we should do something or not, everyday decisions about every day things that affect the way we shape our lives. The conscious mind can accept or reject anything. Once the conscious mind accepts something the subconscious mind must accept it totally without resistance.
The subconscious mind is really where all the results come from. This is the part of the mind that ultimately controls how our life is going to be lived and how happy we are based on what we believe to be true. Fear, doubt, worry, happiness and joy all come from the subconscious mind, based on what the conscious mind accepted or rejected over time and is still accepting or rejecting every decision we make by all that we see and hear every day all day. Think about it if we watch or hear something depressing, what happens, we start to get depressed, which in turn affects our mood, we get grumpier, we are not as nice to people, we lose hope. Experienced this long enough and negative things start to happen to us, we get a flat tire, that bill that we were worried about being able to pay doesn’t get paid, we have an argument with our significant other, our kids start getting on our nerves. But, turn it around, what happens when we watch or hear something happy, such as funny movie, our favorite song, or eat our favorite meal? We feel happy and want to enjoy life to the fullest, we worry less and positive things start happening to us. We get a raise at work, we get compliments, we start to have amazing energy every day, our car runs better or seems to. The point is that we are in control, we are in the driver’s seat, no one else but us. The way we control this is by our conscious and subconscious mind. Remember, whatever the conscious mind accepts or rejects our subconscious mind must accept unconditionally. Since this is the case, we all should start taking control of our conscious mind, start being more aware of what we look at, hear and who we hang around with. If we know something is depressing, let’s change it, let’s reject it and turn it into something happy, let’s decide to get out of that environment, let’s focus on more of what we love, more of what makes us happy. We are totally in charge and remember, we can accept or reject anything in our life. We have the power and the ability to change it in our conscious mind before it ever gets to our subconscious mind and this is where magic happens, this is where we live our dream life, where a life that we totally love begins.
Now grab some paper and a pen, take your time with these questions:
- Thoughts become things! Using what you have learned about the consciousness mind and the subconscious mind, explain how thoughts can become things?
- When problems do arise, do you tend to react quickly, or do you take time to think, and then respond later?
- Make a list of your immediate concerns regarding your present and future goals. From the list, look and see which have merit and which do not.
- Make a list of past or present beliefs that may have been keeping you from moving closer to your goals and desires.
- What existing behavioral patterns can you identify that may need attention if, you would like to see greater results in the future.
- Make a list of changes you are willing to make immediately.
(French, Inside Out, 2020)