What courage looks like on an ordinary day

Self-portrait in the hall mirror: What courage looks like at my place, on an ordinary day.

When people hear that I lived in places like Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip they often tell me that they think I am very brave.

I am brave. Some days I think I may be the bravest muthafucka on the planet.

As I told some friends this morning, if you look up "courage" in my dictionary, you'll see a picture of me, resplendent in my favorite green Superhero cape.

But on an ordinary day, which means every day around these parts, courage looks less like a trip into a war-zone and more like this:

• Showing up to a yoga workshop even though I know perfectly well that this style of yoga takes me so far out of my yoga comfort-zone that I'll probably end up crying (and not the pretty kind of crying, more the gasping, snorting, snot-dripping kind).

• Accepting that my boyfriend invites his (much younger and much hotter) ex-lover to stay with us, not because it doesn't bother me but because it does bother me and I'm ready to face down those particular gremlins.

• Writing the book I've always wanted to write despite the fact that I know it will never be as good as I've always hoped it would be.

• Leading 45 people on a 30 day yoga journey despite having spent the first two hours of this morning weeping into my yoga mat (which is also green, a great colour for courage).

• Looking at my own tear-stained face in the mirror and finding something of beauty and someone to love, even when the voices in my head are all braying for blood for my failings.

How about you? What does courage look like at your place today?

Comments

[a.q.s.]

courage can also mean compassionately showing the boyfriend and young one OUT the door. :) hehe!

you are BEAUTIFUL.

courage is being human--truly, authentically human, which means you cry, laugh, wonder, touch, feel too much, can't feel, deal, float, gloat, sink, swim, get hope by detour of having lost it, and do it all over again.

huggies.

annie

[renaissance costume]

Wow I really admire you.. As for me, courage is waking up early in the morning and working. Working for about 12-15 hours a day ( facing an ill mannered boss and swallowing all my pride)to feed my family and send my kids to a better school.

[Lindsey]

I love this. Courage is in our everyday acts, our smallest choices. I believe that so completely.
xo

[Privilege of Parenting]

It's cool that you have so much courage. I do what I can to help, I do my yoga, I love the world... but like Woody Allen once said, "Brave men run in my family."

Namaste

[Bea]

I felt this deep in my bones. You are just about the bravest muthafucka I know.

I love you to bits.

And FYI: there is no bloody way she's hotter than you, girl!