In Praise of Courage

A friend of mine deals daily with a serious, ongoing medical problem. Every aspect of her life: her diet, daily exercise, medications, have all been radically adjusted. Due to a weakened immune system, she has to take great care, but she continues to go out in the world, connecting with friends and living her life as normally as she can.

She is one of the most courageous people I know. Imagine my surprise when she rejected my acknowledgment of her bravery. “I’m not brave at all,” she told me, “I never chose this. Brave ones are those who do what they do by choice.”

“Courage has nothing to do with whether your circumstances were chosen,” I argued, “It is about how you respond to the circumstances you face. You are making choices. You make choices every day when you face the facts and take action despite risks. To me, your choices are courageous.”

Whether you are a soldier in battle or a patient in hospital, a young lover or a spouse at the end of a marriage, external circumstances are always beyond our control. We don’t create the conditions we find ourselves in. But we always have choices in how to respond.

I work with couples who are grieving the death of their marriage. Whether they initiated the divorce or are reacting to it, they are confronted by a choice between two paths. Do they resent, lament and shrink away, or stand tall and move toward the challenge? Courage is not about choosing the challenge, but about facing it without turning away. 

We live in a risk averse culture. Parents and teachers encourage kids to be safe. That’s important, of course, since there’s no benefit to rushing headlong into danger. Liability issues cause us to overly emphasize safety, however, when it is only one component of a vital life. I fear we do a disservice to our children and ourselves when we are too intent on avoiding risk. Ultimately, unwanted change will happen to us all. Life carries unavoidable risks. We are well advised to nurture attitudes that embrace a certain amount of risk as a route to enriched living.

Courage isn’t to be confused with impulsivity or recklessness. I recommend embracing risk carefully, even strategically, as a necessary ingredient to meaningful growth. Falling in love, launching a career, starting a business, driving a car: all carry risks. It isn’t courageous to rush blindly into those activities, or to pretend there aren’t any risks attached. Such denial borders more on foolishness than bravery. The courageous person clearly assesses the risks, balances them against the potential benefits, and chooses to proceed.

When my friend researched her disease instead of turning away from the unpleasant information and explored safe steps she could take instead of retreating to her room, she not only reengaged actively in the world, she also set the model, in my eyes, for what it means to be brave.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.

To Speak or Not to Speak – That Is the Question (When To Press Pause)

“I try not to react, but one day I’m afraid I’m going to burst. Arguing just makes it worse.”

Every couple struggles at times to communicate. Some boil in silence; others snap back defensively. But lasting connection is built out of small, daily, often unnoticed efforts of patience and restraint that enable you to listen with respect and speak your mind clearly.

Instead of cold forbearance and withdrawal or hot counter-attack, try pivoting instead toward genuine curiosity about the other person’s feelings. Listening with deep sincerity is the first step toward an honest conversation. That’s when a couple can collaborate.

It’s hard to know how and when to speak, yet at some point, speak we must. The challenge to decide when to speak and when to let it pass requires an effort. Here are a few tips to make it easier.

If you tend to push at difficult topics:

Ask yourself about your intention. Are you trying to prove you’re right, explain yourself or push to a solution? If so, save your words for later.

If your goal is to work through a problem and to do so together, then the following tips help direct the conversation toward a deeper understanding:

·       Inquire into their feelings and what matters to them right now

·       Ask about what they would have liked, what they wish would have happened

·       Name something specific you observed and ask what its impact was on them

·       Summarize what you are hearing to check in if you are hearing correctly

If you tend to avoid difficult topics:

If silence is your fallback, try to keep in mind that all emotions are legitimate. They deserve to be heard. More than that, they offer a window into our deepest needs. Speaking about them will accelerate you and your partner’s awareness of what matters.

Negative emotions rise out of healthy needs that aren’t being met. They are worth exploring together to find more skilful ways to meet them. To get a healthy conversation going, the points above will help you to “get” what matters to the other. But chances are, you haven’t been heard. To help them “get” your viewpoint regarding the issue or conflict at hand:

·       Begin with a positive quality of the other that is honest and relevant

·       Identify the emotional impact, for you, of a specific thing that happened

·       Identify the underlying need, belief or value that matters to you and caused the feeling to arise

·       Ask the other person to summarize what they have heard you say

·       Inquire about their comments or questions and viewpoint

Beware of concluding too quickly that because you’re struggling you must be with the wrong person. Struggle sparks change and motivates growth. Resenting or avoiding the hard conversations can cause you to miss the fact that those difficulties can take you to a deeper place of intimacy and understanding. We need to be tested to discover who we are capable of becoming.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.

In Search of Happiness? Then Sit First with Sadness

My friend is trying to find happiness and worries he is failing. In the eyes of the world, he’s a success: a gifted young professional supported by a warm partner, family and friends. When he’s busy he feels fine. Yet in quiet moments of reflection those external markers of success only make him feel emptier. “What’s wrong with me?”, he often wonders, “Shouldn’t my accomplishments be enough?”

His solution has been to push harder, work longer hours, train harder at the gym, take extra courses and do volunteer work in his community. He hopes, by doing more, to drown out the doubts, to feel worthy and find peace.

He isn’t a client, but knows I’m a life coach whose work is to help others make desired changes. He came to me for advice. I listened first to understand the change he wanted and after a few meetings I was able to respond. The advice I offered went something like this.

“We live in a culture that embraces observable, external success, that encourages doing more, acquiring or accomplishing measurable things. It works for some people. For you, however, the journey for meaning is inward. You need to continue performing in the world. Keep doing that. Then give yourself a break. Make time to stop doing.

It takes courage to stand still in the mess, “to sit with discomfort without trying to fix it”.  My friend has been trying to fill the void by doing more and more.  That’s worthy, but it’s only half the story for those of us working to ward off low-level depression. He encouraged me to continue.

“Time to try doing les and face the negative emotions that arise when you slow down.  Practise sitting still, facing the sadness, the fear, the uncertainty, before rushing to distract yourself with another task.

Even for just 5 minutes a day. It’s an exercise in emotional acceptance, a recognition that uncomfortable emotion is part of who we are. Study where the feeling lives in your body. Sit with it. Then watch as the emotion drifts away, unable to hurt you once you stop fearing it.”

My friend’s unhappiness arises in part from unrealistic demands he places on himself. He sees his distress as a failing, something that shouldn’t be there. I urged him to honour the sorrow without pushing it away.

A healthy identity encompasses the full palette of emotion. Sadness does NOT define who he is, but in its place it’s an honest, healthy part. Pushing it away won’t get rid of it, only lend it undue importance as though it is to be feared.

I wanted my final words to be encouraging.  “Try connecting with the sadness. Listen to it, learn from it, comfort it, hold it. To paraphrase an eastern parable: “Instead of chasing after wellbeing, consider this: wellbeing might be behind you, struggling to catch up to you.”

My words didn’t fix anything. They weren’t intended to. But my friend told me recently that he feels more empowered now that he works less on controlling his difficult emotions and more on understanding and accepting them.

After we ended, I sent him the following quotation, which he now has posted on his wall.

“When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are the times that we connect with bodhichitta (awakened mind).”

From The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, page 9

by Pema Chödrön

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike MacConnell, founder of Reflective Mediation, is an accredited family mediator, conflict coach, educator and author. He is the highest-ranked mediator on Google in the greater Toronto area, with over 180 5-star reviews. To book your free consultation click here.