What does it mean to find courage?

I am reading a beautiful book at the moment by Mark Nepo called "Finding Inner Courage" and he proposes so many facets to the concept of courage and what it might mean in our daily lives. He looks at this from so many different angles and the contemplation that it provokes is very moving.

One of the things that struck me the most this week was his thoughts around our need to find the courage to look intently at our own lives...to dig deeper and look beneath the surface of who we really are - and that this does, indeed, take courage. He made a profound statement when he said "...facing, feeling, and accepting our own suffering keeps us from reenacting it on others." (A very powerful first step to living compassionately in this world is to truly identify with our own life experiences and move past the "stories" we tell ourselves and others about our lives.) He goes on to say that, "a central goal of inner courage is to bear our humanness and integrate our experience so that we might strengthen the bond between living things". His book really is a beautiful read and it does make you think about so many things.

I pose this question and challenge to you this week...Will you have the courage to set aside some time and do some self-contemplation? Have a think about the stories you tell about your life - about who you are, where you came from, what you have faced...Regardless of how real they are, or how much you cling to these stories...Regardless of how much they impact on how you live your daily life...Do you have the courage to let them go? Could you move forward in your life letting go of all those "stories" that previously defined you?

"May I detach today from the stories of my past making room in my heart for my true nature to grow. As my heart creates space, may it be filled with gratitude and compassion." ~ Namaste