How does one develop Courage?...
I have read a lot of things in my life that changed me with a slow progression, fiction and nonfiction.
(Fiction is a way of telling the truth with a lie.) HA!
Anyway...I read some words that changed my life instantly. I don't know that I have ever gotten anything so quickly in mind, I usually have to ponder it a while and then it comes. I will be walking along doing other things and BAM!..it hits me and I will yell out..."That's what that meant!" ...but that didn't happen yesterday. It was an instant SHIFT of being.
Yes, I am going to share the remarkable words of beauty that changed my life forever.
I am always in a hurry, I have been in a hurry since I was a teenager, doing so causes me to have anxiety. I rush, rush, rush...and then get very upset if someone slows me down. Especially in driving...If you go grocery shopping with me you must jog beside the buggy to keep up. One day while getting groceries a man burst into laughter while seeing me coming, and I thought; Uh Oh..whats happened? I turn around because at this point in the mission I am pulling the buggy from the wrong end..my daughter was pushing at one time...but she must have given out because when I turned to see what the man was laughing at she was hanging from the handle dragging her feet behind her...skiing through the isles. She was having fun but I was so rushed...I paid it no attention. Just drug the child from one isle to the next.
Add coffee to that picture...and you can get a bit of an idea of what a day spent with me would be like.
Life Changing Words from a book written in 1828 by Prentice Mulford.
"COURAGE and
presence of mind mean the same thing. Presence of mind implies command of mind. (PONDER THAT SENTENCE A MINUTE BEFORE MOVING FORWARD)
The quality of mind or emotion underlying all this
hurried mental condition and consequent hurried act, is fear.
Fear is but another name for
lack of power to control our minds, or, in other words, to control the kind of thought we think or put out.
The cultivation of courage commences in the cultivation of
deliberation! (Deliberate movement in body and mind: "Right now I am walking, just walking..I am not at an interview, I am not fighting with my neighbor, I am not paying the bills...I am just walking, and I have an amazing walk, and WOW, Where did that amazing flower come from?, Thank you!") I'm here now...I am deliberate. I am Awake. I am in control of my thought. I am Still. I am ...
If we analyze what we fear, we shall find we are in mind
trying to deal with too much at once of the thing feared.
There is only a relatively small amount to be dealt with now. In any transaction – in the doing of anything
there is but one step to be taken at a time.
Timidity is often the result of looking at
too many difficulties or terrors at once. In material reality we have to deal with but
one at a time. If we are going to what we fear will be a disagreeable interview with a harsh, irascible, over‐bearing person, we are apt to go, occupying our minds with the whole interview. (We visualize the entire outcome in a negative way before it takes place and this causes fear to grow and intimidation to occur.)
The more we train our minds so to
concentrate on the one step, the more do we increase capacity for sending our force all in one given direction at once.
Pleasure is the sure result of placing thought or force
on the thing we are doing now, and pain of some sort in both present and future is the certain result of sending thought or force away from the act which needs to be done at this moment.
To train then for courage is to train for deliberate movement in all things, for that is simply training to mass and hold your force in reserve and let out no more than is needed for
the moment."
And so after reading that, I began to think about my now moments, I still need to visualize my goals but there is a time and a place for that. In meditation, in earnest prayer seeking and for me at a peak of exercise excitement when my heart is pounding...and its creative.
But the point of this part of my spiritual growth was to understand my thinking and how I overwhelm myself with
too many thoughts, and
too many images at once...which causes my body to try and catch up with all that disorganized chaos...
it physically puts me in a hurry all the time.
Sure I have learned to have my moments of stillness but until now they were never controlled moments. When I found time out of my busy mind schedule I would just stop for those few moments to deliberately think a thing or a dream for the future through in its entirety.
It wasn't until yesterday that I realized how to deliberately walk and enjoy the moment of my being. It was fabulous and as I was sweating from the run, (the deliberate run) I was in the moment enough to enjoy the beautiful trees and the wind, I saw the beauty of nature unfold right in front of my eyes...and at the perfect time in admiring her it started to rain just enough to cool me off. All I could say to that out loud was "THANK YOU" and I truly meant it from my heart. And it was like Nature heard me and I felt her appreciation for my appreciation of her beauty. No words exist to describe that Amazing feeling in its entirety!
Bliss is only part of it...
Infinite Blessings & Perfect Love