Sometimes life ahead can look and feel like a mountain. It stands before you as a barrier and a frightening if not awesome prospect, triggering feelings of foreboding and smallness as it drains the enthusiasm from your very veins.
And then along comes one of those mountaineer types. One of those people who thrives on the challenge of climbing a lofty peak, conquering flat rock vertical faces and slaying the ice and snow on the way. Watching people like that take on life with gusto, and even contempt, can sometimes give you hope, but at other times they only seem to confirm your sense of self-inadequacy.
But mountains don’t have to be climbed just because they stand ahead. The courage of the mountaineer is often mistaken for the ego of, “I’m going to conquer you, like it or not.”
And the energy of that ego is the driving force that takes the climber to the top. Another word for this is ambition, and climbers, of the social type, seldom worry who they have to clamber over on the way. Everyone knows a good climber, and seldom are they the most popular people in the world.
For most people it takes the courage of honesty to say ‘that it looks too big for me, I just don’t know how I’m going to get there’. But it is that very honesty which releases the tension of having to confront the monster, which is turn allow you to see there is another way – all mountains don’t have to be climbed the hard way, especially the once called life.
Extend the courage of your honesty into the courage of letting go. Let go of the fear that says, what if I don’t make it? Let go of the baggage of all your possessions, which you cannot take with you. Let go of others’ opinions which say you might as well not bother.
It takes courage to let go of your self-imposed limitations, and it takes courage to visualise yourself looking down on the mountains of life, seeing them only as a small rage of hills. That vision alone releases energy for forward movement. And finally, it takes courage to let go of the belief that there is such a thing as fear!
Where is all this courage going to come from? How are you going to get access to it? Courage is not yet on the market. Neither packaged nor bottled, it is the stuff of the human spirit. To be inspired (in-spirited) is to have your spirit filled with the energy of courage. There are never doubts in inspiration. There are no fears in spirited effort. The well-spring of courage is therefore within.
The tales of courage in our history books always remember the physical overcoming the physical, the defeating of the enemy and the foe. But is this real courage, or is it the offspring of folly, the defence against the threat of death, the obedience to authority for fear of punishment, or like the mountaineer, the ego’s driving need for achievement and recognition?
No one talks about the courage required to admit they are wrong. The courage to go into the meeting with that person you dislike the most, and make yourself like him. Or the courage to see the good side of a person, when all you want to see is the bad. The courage to love, when all you want to do is hate. The courage to climb your own internal mountains of jealousy, anger, self doubt, and all those feelings that you are not good enough.
This is the courage that creates heroes. Invisible and unsung heroes, taking on their mountains, and quietly inspiring others to reach for their own personal peaks.

Better Choices, Less Regrets

inner peace

self-mastery

connecting with the divine

Better Choices, Less Regrets

inner peace

self-mastery

connecting with the divine