2023-05-09 13:46:00
Courage is taking the heart forward. The word derives from “cor” (heart in Latin) and this from the Greek “kardiá”, even though the word from the old Frank “courage” was adapted to Spanish (coeur: heart in current French). Having courage is synonymous with having courage, of “putting your heart forward”.
Am I putting my heart first? Am I moving towards what I consider important, even when it is uncomfortable, scary or uncertain? Thich Nhat Hanh says that the miracle is not walking on the water but walking on the earth occupying the present moment, feeling fully alive.
Being present requires courage. Courage to live our reality here and now, and live according to what is important or valuable to us. Courage is the willingness to stay with that fear that appears, a little while longer.
“I have had many problems in life, but most have never happened to me,” says Mark Twain. The mind anticipates what is going to happen and arranges for us to escape before it happens and we suffer. But, paradoxically, we suffer because we escape.
control fear
How much time of your day did you spend worrying, anticipating, problem solving, judging yourself, or judging how they acted? Escape? How does it feel? Fear turns into suffering when we organize our lives around it, when it takes control, when it is the one that gives meaning to our existence and we become a fearful self, a self where something is going to go wrong or something is wrong. evil. We are kidnapped by that emotion.
Winston Churchill said: “I spent more than half my life worrying about things that were never going to happen.” Fear is armor that, although it seems to protect me, when I wear it permanently, the body begins to feel its pressure, its rigidity.
Being present is being honest with yourself. How do I escape from the present? If I ask you about your future today, that answer will refer to the future, but it will talk about how you feel about that future today.
If you could welcome that thought, you could notice what it is and that it is here, in the present, even though it has the form of the future. Likewise, if a memory were to appear, this thought would originate in the present, not in my past. Today, that story is present in a memory, although I would be talking about what that memory represents today in my story.
Therefore, if the time that exists is now, I free myself from being trapped in the past or future, since everything happens here and now.
Courage to live in the present
If I were to ask you where you would like to travel next year, this thought is born in the present, I would talk about what you want and think today, about what is happening in your life at this moment that leads you to go to that place and not to another , of what it would mean for you today, to go there.
Therefore, the wish for the future is talking to you about something you want today, it talks about you, now. If I don’t cling to that idea “next year I have to go to…”, I will be able to live that thought freely.
But in reality, what happens to us? I need to think that next year I’m going to be there and I want it to happen, which leads me to avoid feeling what I’m feeling in the present and to get frustrated when I can’t be there or when there isn’t as special as I expected. We do it, I do it, and it seems that this is how we deal with what we want, we hope, we believe what should be.
If I think that I want to never suffer from unrequited love again, I will remain clinging to that thought, taking excessive care not to go through the same situation again, I will live from the fear of suffering for love, moving away from living the experience of love here and now.
I will be suffering heartbreak, without love having really happened. Ernesto Mallo, an Argentine writer, says that not loving for fear of suffering is like not living for fear of dying.
We say to ourselves: “I don’t understand how someone can live with that problem. If it happened to me, I would die.” Or “if the same thing happened to me, I wouldn’t know how to handle the situation”. Human beings underestimate our own ability to continue with our lives, if something bad happened. We constantly overestimate how unhappy we would be in the face of adversity, says Elizabeth Gilbert.
We need courage to stop, courage to live in the present and let go of what is not happening here and now. Courage to enjoy the journey. Courage is traveling with your heart forward.
We believe that we will be free when we have everything “under control” and the trip does not happen, the memory torments me and unrequited love finally happens again. Everything can be taken from a man, except the choice of personal attitude that he can take to build his path, said Victor Frankl.
* Valentina Masjoan is a psychologist (MP 9.660). On Instagram, @valentinamasjoan
#present #living #heart