I meant to take photographs of my garden in the snow last week. Of a magical wonderland with snow settled on the branches of the trees. But I missed the chance.

The next morning I got up to naked branches again. A thaw had set in overnight. In a few hours the garden transformed to ordinary. Bare grey and brown branches again. The sparkle was gone.

While I was sad I didn’t get the photos, I was glad I’d been able to take in the fleeting beauty of the white garden. While it was there.

Every Day

It was a reminder that everything in my life has a departure date. I have a departure date. There’ll come a day when the trees may still be there, but I won’t.

That thought doesn’t depress or upset me at all. It’s a fact that I’m entirely comfortable with, surrendered to.

Every day has a richness to it now that I once would have found hard to believe. A peace of mind and serenity that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Your Life Is Precious

Each day becomes significant when you wake up to the fact that life is precious. Your life is precious. And it matters. What you do, who you are, what you think, and what you say, matters.

Whatever is holding you back from living the life you were born to live, you only get to challenge while you’re here. Life moves swiftly on.

How Do You Want Your Story To End?

Each day brings you closer to that final curtain. How do you want your story to end? The trajectory you’re on now will determine it. Unless you change that.

If you don’t like where that road is taking you, there’s something you need to call forth from within. And start steering the vehicle of you in another direction.

Your courage.

Do you remember the lion in the Wizard of Oz? He made the long trek to see the wizard because he wanted the wizard to give him courage. Yet the journey he took revealed the courage that was there all along. That which he couldn’t connect with in his belief that he had none!

His belief about himself wasn’t true. It wasn’t a lack of courage that caused him to suffer, but a thought he held in his mind.

Courage Is Woven Into You

lionYour mind will always play tricks with you. Its currency is illusion. Courage isn’t born of the mind but of the heart. It’s woven into you. You can no more shed your courage than you can shed your skin.

Yet like that lion, you can lose touch with it at times.

I hear often “I wish I had the courage to…” (leave this dead relationship…change my career…stop drinking…ask that girl out…come and see you), fill in the blanks.

It would be far more accurate to say “I’ve lost touch with the courage that would enable me to…”

There’s truth and power in that recognition. And that recognition is the first step to becoming intimate with your courage again. As you acknowledge you’ve lost touch with it, the ball’s in your court. The choice to reconnect with it is yours to make.

Look For Your Point Of Choice

In everything, look for your point of choice. Where is it? What does it look like in this situation? Because a point of choice is a point of power.

Authentic power and courage flow through every beat of your heart. Through every rise and fall of your breath.

In wishing for courage, to be able to make changes in your life, you’re on that yellow brick road. In fantasy land. Off to see the wizard. Looking for something or someone on the outside to give you what’s been in your own heart the whole time.

A Matter Of Life Or Death

As long as you believed the lie that you didn’t have it, you couldn’t see it. You made the lie more powerful than the truth. And then you became its prisoner. Not seeing that the keys to your dank cell have always been resting in your own hands.

Reconnecting with your courage is a matter of life or death. It is that important. I’ve actually known people who got sick and died because they’d lost touch with their courage. With that which would have enabled them to get out of a situation that was killing them.

I remember a time in my own life when I woke up one morning knowing “If I don’t get out of here I will die. This will kill me”. I got out. And never looked back.

Look For Evidence Of The Truth

When you look back into your own life you will see times when you took your courage into your hands and acted on it. When you did what needed to be done. Said what needed to be said.

To look for evidence of the truth will serve you better than nursing a lie.

If you’re out of touch with your courage now, see its appearance in your life in the past. Look for it, it’s there. You will find it when you look deep enough.

Intimacy With Your Courage

The road to deep intimacy with your courage is a concrete, straight one. You get on it by making a choice today to do or say one small thing that requires courage. And acknowledge yourself for making that choice.

Then do it again tomorrow.

Courage isn’t something that descends on you. A wizard can’t wave a magic wand and give it to you. It’s an inherent part of you, which like a muscle, you build daily.

Before You Know It

Every small choice for courage builds on itself. Before you know it, you’ll find yourself thinking, speaking and acting with courage. The courage that’s been there all the time. Waiting for you to awake from your slumber.

You’ll look in the mirror and see what a truly courageous man looks like. See that what you’ve wished for has always been within you.

The Final Curtain

When the final curtain comes down on your life there’ll be no time left to make choices. No time left to pick up any courage you abandoned.

Now is the time to take that first step to living a courageous life.

What else is worthy of you? What else are you here for?

Like the snow, you may not have tomorrow. You have today.

Now.

Begin.

About the author 

Abi O'Donovan

Hi, I'm Abi O'Donovan. I work with men over 40 who worry about their sexual performance, are frustrated they can't last longer in bed, or sometimes can't get or sustain an erection, even though their doctor says they can find no reason why.

In my life I relish; both solitude and good company, tending my beautiful garden in Ireland, tootling around the Wicklow hills in my vintage MX5, good wine, slow touch, and the soul-reviving pleasure of contemplation in nature.

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  1. Hi Abi,
    Enjoyed reading your recent Blog on Snow, Death and the Surefire Path to Courage.
    How many times when doing a bit of research did I come across an interesting article I meant to copy, but didn’t. (Now where was that article on?) But I am getting better at it.
    My life is full of departure dates and my way of dealing with them was to commit them to the back of my mind and forget about them. Little did I know that the mind does not store this information but the effects are felt throughout the body? Such as, Headaches, Anxiety, Indigestion, Pain in my knee and so on. I was so lucky to have made contact with you and from that initial meeting my life has been transformed for the better.
    As I started to look at where my precious life was heading, I knew I needed to take the necessary action to deal with my issues.
    Which brings up the whole subject of Courage? Have the Courage to do things. But what is Courage? Do we take it for granted? Is it about being a battle-ready soldier? If you think about it we display Courage every day of our lives. When we feel deeply passionate about something, we find Courage easily. When it comes to protecting our children we find super human Courage. So, let’s find that Courage for ourselves.
    Courage can be about just admitting that we are wrong, saying I love you, admitting that I can’t cope, be willing to receive, to choose love over fear. The list goes on and on.
    To Quote Mary Anne Radmacher, “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes Courage is the silent voice at the end of the day that says “I will try again tomorrow.”
    So when my time comes to depart this beautiful life I will be so happy that I had the Courage to make changes in my life, especially the one I wanted to change. To have been strong enough to be honest with the world and specially myself.
    Best Regards,
    John X

  2. Thanks John. Yes, the list goes on and on of all the innumerable ways courage can be expressed. I’ve never heard that quote by Mary Ann Radmacher before. I shall remember that one.

    And I love what you write “I shall be so happy that I had the Courage to make changes in my life…To have been strong enough to be honest with the world and especially myself.”
    That’s one of the most beautiful and inspiring statements I’ve encountered in a long time. Thank you so much for sharing that.

    Warmest regards,
    Abi x

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