COURAGE MONTH: DAY 30: “Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires….courage.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
No one knows this journey, but the heart having it. That is always going to be true. There will always be people with opinions, no doubt about it. They are going to weigh in, with and without your permission. Learning to be a grown up, in my vernacular, is learning to let them speak if they will, and doing what is right for you, no matter what they say.
I seldom allow them to speak. I find it insufferably rude of others to tell me the path I need to take. I do not seek advice, except when I truly believe another person to have greater experience than that which I can claim. Even then, I know the courage of always sitting with my inner wisdom (Heart-courage, not Ego, mind) before choosing anything.
It does require courage to map out our own course, because we are following the heart, and that is where courage comes from. It is like combining the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. Together, they made a great team…heart and courage…to me, the same thing. Intuitively knowing and following that knowing.
The Promises of AA give us the gift of stating that we “will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.” When we are following our Ego and destroy relationships with others (and with Self and God), we are not acting from heart or courage. When we begin to view our relationships through the lens of heart, we KNOW what to do to be right within ourselves.
There is no further doubt about how we act. Ever. We may not like the way we sometimes believe we are debasing ourselves, but we MUST learn to step out of Ego. We cannot be comfortable with our actions until we let go of Ego and live fully in the Heart. And we always know, even when we pretend otherwise.
Don’t listen to those whose agendas you are NOT here to fulfill. “To thine own self be true” is what is written on every chip we take in this recovery journey. For a reason. For a purpose…for YOUR recovery.
Dolphin Hug 