Yesterday we looked at the common mistake of confusing fearlessness and courage. We saw that being afraid does is not the opposite of being courageous. We learned that being courageous means being afraid but acting anyway.
The idea that a frightened person is automatically not courageous is an error. This error gets corrected quickly when we start to do the work of recovery.
How does recovery correct this error and teach us about the true nature of courage and being courageous? It teaches us this part of the lesson by forcing our hands. At first, we wait to “feel brave” before doing the difficult, scary things that we must do in order to move forward.
We wait. And we wait. Then we wait some more. Yet the feeling we are after never arrives. We stay put, hoping for the day when the fear will subside so we can take those first steps. But the waiting proves fruitless. The fear remains despite the effort we put into wishing it away, reading about recovery, talking about recovery, and asking questions about recovery. We work so hard to intellectually and emotionally soothe the fear so we can move forward, yet we remain stuck. No amount of hoping, wishing, thinking, reading, discussing, or “mindset engineering” helps. The world continues to pass us by, while we remain frozen in place.
Frustration may set in. We may begin to doubt our ability to ever take those first steps, or to recover at all.
“If I can’t be brave - if I’m still so afraid - then how will I ever do this????”
The endless analysis and questioning all leads to one conclusion ...
“Wait. So I have to do this WHILE I am afraid??”
Here, the lesson is revealed. Recovery forces our hands. It does not permit progress via thoughts or words. It demands progress via ACTION. Recovery remains disinterested in our desire to not be afraid, then it gets right up in our faces and tells us that being afraid is not only unavoidable but required. It informs us in no uncertain terms that acting while afraid is the way out.
Damn you, recovery. Why must you be so cold?
One of the great paradoxes of recovery is that we must do things we think we are incapable of doing so we may learn that we are in fact far more capable than we think. This applies to being courageous. When we take that terrifying leap of faith and act even when afraid, the first lesson is courage is revealed to us. It’s only in the doing and the facing of the fear that we find our bravery.
I say often that this is a bad deal, but is the deal that we have. When it comes to finding your courage, this unfortunately rings true.
If you are afraid, and you are feeling that you possess no courage, know that in many ways courage is something we learn more than something we have. We act when afraid, we find success, and our courage grows. This is how it works.
You are not weak. You have merely not practiced flexing your courage muscles.
Tomorrow we’ll look at why acceptance is NOT a universal life strategy.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
14. Recovery Forces Our Hand