Examining the many, daily, moment to moment choices we make, I've been pondering about the experience of courage involved in the seemingly unbridled choices. There are sections of my life I'm reviewing where I'm asking the question whether I was awake or asleep at the wheel? How much of a role did courage play in some major decisions? As a review, I ask myself how do I feel today about certain choices? Was I aware of my needs when making these decisions? If so, what were they? Would the needs be the same today?
In some communities, this process is called 'taking an inventory.' I find it cathartic and useful especially at year's end.
Recently, I offered a 9 week NVC class on the Vortex of Submission. The study of the Vortex is all about choices made living unconsciously in a cycle of submission. In my introspective review, I've encountered experiences of regret, sadness, and even guilt, like churning up wounded parts in the process of tilling soil for new plantings. There's a process in The Vortex called Beneficial Regret I've practiced several times in the last 6 months aided by helplessness and discomfort as door openers to a deeper review of my choices and the inquiry of courage.
Ponder... ponder...... deeper ponder.
David Whyte, poet, speaker, teacher, began offering an invitation to conversations called Three Sundays during Covid. He continues today exploring a topic on 3 consecutive Sundays where he shares his thoughts and the chosen poetry creatively supporting them. (DavidWhyte.com) Recently, the topic of courage was his focus, the invitation to my internal conversation with courage and introspective approach of self discovery. The word courage, derived from the French word coeur or heart, is shared by David as "a heartfeltpresenceandparticipationin shaping a life as much as for specific challenging circumstances. To be courageous," he continues, "is to feel we are touching a ground that already exists inside us, and from that ground, an ability to look to the horizon. From that courageous ground, things have a possibility of making sense. From that ground, we might step off into a new life."
The practice of embodying Nonviolent Communication has been and continues to be for me at times the fearful introspective entry and structure toward the "step off" into what's next. Involved in this step off, is the practice of vulnerability. One teacher taught me vulnerability is the key to my liberation. Another shares "Everything I want is on the other side of fear."
I've an abundance of gratitude for all my teachers who've introduced me to practices of compassion where I saunter through the weeds sometimes with regret, sadness and guilt finding my true self, my true home.....all through "a heartfelt presence and participation"....courageously.
If you too are looking inward these days as the season of fallow lies before us as the last foliage of summer plants slowly meld toward the abundance of leaves falling, I wish courage for your journey too. It may be brutal.....but also, just maybe, lovely.
"Every now and then, life seems to trip us over certain thresholds of understanding into what feels like free-fall. The ground opens, and we find ourselves completely vulnerable and helpless. We don’t know anything at this time. It’s only in hindsight that we realise how essential that helplessness was. Why? Because it’s only from that helplessness that we can ask for a proper kind of aid. Only from there can we find a new ground to stand on, a new conversation – one that’s no longer just with ourselves."
David Whyte.com, Three Sundays, The Courage in Poetry
“Nonviolent Communication shows us a way of being very honest, without any criticism, insults, or put-downs, and without any intellectual diagnosis implying wrongness.”
— Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD