Where does courage come from?
What choosing to wake up at 4:30am taught me, the sacredness of our dreams, and the power of what is.
Hello my caring friend,
How have you been those past two weeks? What have you learned?
Did Magic find her way into your heart?
Did you have to let go of something?
If so, how did you support yourself, and did you manage to love yourself through the process?
I got to visit and rediscover New Orleans. I had been there seven years ago and instantly fell in love with the energy of soulful resilience and fierce joy, that the city and her people embody. I was so different back then… I have done a lot of letting go since then. And I rediscovered the magic of the world.
I went to New Orleans on my own and committed to harnessing the sacredness of the experience. I woke up everyday at 4:30 am and fell in awe with those silent whimsical hours. By 7:30, I had nourished my mind with an inspiring book, my body with some yummy yoga, my heart with a seated meditation and my dream by journaling and finding my way back into wholeness, into soul energy, into Love. I reconnected with how it feels to START the Earth school day feeling whole.
Earth school is the way one of my favorite teachers, Byron Katie, describes this world. We’re here to learn, to deepen, to expand, I’m sure of that. We need our triggers to be activated for us to grow awareness around our blind spots and find another way to see what we couldn't see before, what we cannot comprehend with our left hemisphere, what we can only truly understand through our hearts, and without any need for words. I used the last two weeks to retrace the steps that got me here and, by doing so, had to reassess the meanings of many tragedies.
I had never grasped the amount of courage it takes to admit that something that nearly killed us is the reason we came alive afterwards and the source of so many blessings.
It surprised me, because I had managed to rewrite a lot of those previous narratives which compose what I call the SWAN—the story of who I am not.
By the way, it is also the title and story of my first song! One that I am almost ready to share with the world… One that opened in me a whole new chapter, when she found me on the plane home to my beloved New York, traveling back from a chain-breaking trip into the past. (I explain what I mean by chain-breaking HERE).
This brave little song reminded me that dreams are sacred and matter beyond all measure and human understanding… Something I will talk more about in a minute.
But back to courage, for now… I knew the strength, commitment, faith and determination it took to focus on the stars born from the darkness, and release the fear that the dark had spurred in my body and inside world. I knew it also took wisdom, trust, perspective and optimism. I knew it was a choice! A tough, but highly rewarding one. A tough, but indispensable one.
I had not fully evaluated the price in courage, however.
The courage to relinquish not only part but ALL the grounding that we can find in duality. The courage to accept that we have no way of knowing if an event is a blessing or a tragedy, because it is most probably both. No matter how gut wrenching. No matter how horrific. No matter how wonderful. No matter how neutral.
The courage to admit that we benefited from something that took one of our most precious reasons to live. The courage to see that something good can come from something terrible, without making it mean that we didn’t care, that we’re not still allowed to grieve wholeheartedly, that we’re a bad person, that it diminishes the love we felt and feel for that person—and/or part of us—that was taken away, forever. The courage to acknowledge that if we could do it all again, it would have to happen the exact same way for our dreams to come true.
I had learned through experience the humility that requires a healing journey and yet, never saw this clearly that the problem is not that we do not see what we need to be at peace; we get lost because we’re confused about the order in which to feel.
We look for the meaning the present will bring into our tomorrow, when we’re drawing in the present loss of meaning of our past. We look for courage to see how to overcome our grief before letting ourselves surrender to the inevitability of feeling it first. Hence the overmedication… Hence the chronic trauma. We look for the willpower to live again before connecting to the humility it takes to accept that, right now, all that is required (and possible) is to survive. That we’re meant to ground in our faith that soon, soon enough, we will feel good and love again, but that right now the honorable thing to do is to let ourselves feel the hurt.
I say honorable because I believe that our feelings deserve reverence. All of them. Especially the so-called bad ones! No feeling is bad. They’re just misunderstood, disrespected, and outcasted when they’re only trying to serve and help. Which is quite ironic when we realize that feeling misunderstood, disrespected, and outcasted when we’re only trying to serve and help, is one of the main reasons we experience those feelings in the first place. Which speaks to how we treat ourselves the way we believe others are treating us.
We tend to believe that the courage to overcome our circumstances must come first… But it does not. Because it can’t. First because courage needs legs to stand on. Second because courage is not about overcoming. It’s about accepting. What is. What is not anymore. What will never be again. Accepting that we don’t need to see the way forward, we’re only called to trust that it exists. Accepting that it’s not time to move forward now… and that we must stay where it hurts, first.
And in regards to the legs courage will need to walk us out of predicament:
We wait to feel trust before trusting, and we wonder why trust never shows up. Same with confidence. Same with our dreams.
We don’t understand that only by learning how to trust will we be able to trust; and that we can only learn how to trust by trusting first, and then see how it feels when we were right to trust and what happens when we were wrong.
We don’t realize that confidence is a skill that comes from building our integrity, making small but meaningful commitments to ourselves and meeting them on a daily basis. We hope that WHEN we feel confident we’ll be able to follow through, and never get the chance to follow through on what would build our confidence.
We trick ourselves into thinking that our dreams have to come true before we can believe in them… forgetting that they can only come true IF and WHEN we believe in them. Our dreams need us. They’re not here to save us! They’re here to show us how we save ourselves.
Courage requires trust indeed. Trust in ourselves or trust in life. Trust in something better.
Without some kind of trust, there’s no courage because there’s no will to act. There’s not even an idea that acting—even if only through thought—is an option. Courage requires confidence that we will be able to do something, anything about the situation. Otherwise the problem is not a lack of courage, it’s only a case of despair overload. And courage requires our dream to be alive in us, because our dreams are both the compass that drives us and the energy that awakens our essence.
I believe that our dreams are sacred offerings that were put in our hearts to show us the way home. And that they’re meant both to make us happy and to serve the world. I also believe that we misunderstand what happiness and service mean.
We confuse grandiose worldly pursuits with a romanticized sense of purpose, and forget that the only thing we can truly offer the world is the light we carry in our hearts.
We let ourselves hurt others in the name of helping everyone else and somehow believe, that in order to bring out positive change on Earth tomorrow, we’re allowed to make havoc with the world today.
We neglect those we love most—and ourselves!—because we believe that’s how we can take care of them best. It’s almost funny when we think about it. How innocent and misguided our ways are. How off track our culture has led us… and yet, how well we mean, and how good inside we all are.
I believe that our dreams show us the way back. Back to integrity. Back to what matters. Back inside to that part of us that is what unites us all. That deep knowing. That unconditionally loving energy that beats our hearts, breathes our bodies and connect us all—prompting us to harness what is most precious, unique and pure in each of us and to nurture it, protect it, magnify it and to, in time, let it heal us, reveal us and shine for the entire world.
I believe our dreams are our mission. I believe that our dreams can be very small OR vertiginous; and that they’re just as valuable, trustworthy and within reach either way. I believe that we’re lucky if they make sense to those who surround us, but that they rarely do and that it doesn’t matter at all. They’re meant to inspire us to open, grow and change! They’re meant to fuel our creativity and to allow us to become the creators we were sent on Earth to become. And, by definition, a creation is not something that was here before… And it’s really hard to see what you don’t see, isn’t it? Well, others just can’t see our vision until we’ve turned it into reality…
But we can. We don’t call it a vision for nothing. We just need to know where to look. And it’s not in the words of support of those that surround us, it’s not even in the arms or actions of those who love us most. It’s inside. Deep inside our heart. Where our dream whispers, sings, SCREAMS our name if it has to, to remind us that, of course, there’s so much more to life than busyness and drama! There’s intention and magic. There’s joy and beauty. Even when our world collapses. Even when nothing makes sense. It just means that we’re in the middle of the chapter… and our dream can only come true at the end of each story we take part in.
Care.Check: Today or tomorrow, find a moment only for you, and make sure that you have at least 10 minutes of uninterrupted time just between you and you.
Sit comfortably, or lie down and close your eyes if you can. Put a hand on your heart if that doesn't feel too vulnerable. And ask softly to your deep knowing what Your Dream needs from you.
Maybe your dream needs acknowledgement! Maybe you’ve forgotten about your dream… maybe you don’t even remember ever having one. Maybe you’re convinced that you do not have one. So just ask… See what happens. What words, what images, which songs, what memories come to the surface. Trust that it doesn’t have to make any sense right now for you to understand in the coming seconds, minutes, days… or months.
Maybe your dream needs your encouragement! To speak louder, to break the ceilings that the ego built to protect it from the world.
Maybe your dream wants to encourage you? To tell you you’re on your way, only a few corners away, making immeasurable progress and showing up beautifully. Maybe your dream and you need only a little celebration of how good it’s going.
Maybe your dream needs to let you know that it’s time for the next step, the next adventure, an exciting new perspective or an even greater commitment.
Whatever it is, just listen, welcome what comes… even if it’s just silence. Maybe your dream is shy and needs you to show yourself first.
Take a few minutes to write about your experience.
And trust, just trust your dream is here. Stay confident in your ability to dream. Know that reconnecting to your dream is a choice! And wait for the courage to make your dream come true, wait for it to spark a fire inside of you, no matter how slowly.
The beauty of it all is that, once we start to believe, our dreams come true indeed.
When we show up for them, they show up for us.
It’s a law.
With kindness, love and light—because I truly believe they’re our most sacred offering to this world.
Always,
leo