Courage

When I finally knew it was time to leave my marriage, the hardest part was telling him. I didn’t want to face the reality of abandoning him, my comforts, and the years of work we had done. To withstand his grief, my fear, and the empty promises I knew would come, I needed something I could leap towards with blind faith, and that thing was the person I believed I could be and the life I believed I could live. This most patient, generous man had become someone perfecting the art of physical and emotional withdrawal, someone whose contempt was replacing his support, someone unwilling or unable to change either himself or his circumstances to regain peace. But I could. And when the gravity of my determination began to set in, I heard his small voice lament from the darkness, “Why do you have to be so strong?”

I had never thought of myself as strong. I had spent most of my life frustrated and ashamed by my sensitivity, indecisiveness, and tendency to be easily overwhelmed. I was the child crippled by a single word or look of disapproval, the child who would pine for months over crushes without being able to look them in the eye. I was shadowed by the persistent loneliness of not fitting in and doubt over my ability to make and keep friends. When I got really angry, it would consume me in a flood of tears. And I felt intimidated by the bureaucracy of the universities, banks, and businesses I knew I would need to navigate for survival. I resented their existence, and I resented even more that I felt afraid. And I grew determined to root out this weakness.

I chose the largest university I was accepted to and left home. I lived abroad several times, often alone, and after deciding at age 22 to move to Portland, I arrived on a train with two bags to no apartment, no job, and just one friend. I built a life by pursuing the type of work that felt most challenging – jobs with people with disabilities, young men in trouble, neighbors locked in dispute, and domestic violence survivors. I proved to myself that I could do it all, but the fear never left me and the strain of it made me raw with hunger for any hint of comfort or security. I began drinking more to forget my fear, pursuing riskier sex to entice anyone to stay with me, and in the darkest period, carved designs in the skin of my forearm so that someone would notice and rescue me.

My marriage began as a safe-haven of acceptance and comfort, and my volunteer management work offered an opportunity for me to build successful programs and make lasting change. But I had grown so accustomed to pushing through adversity that it took the deterioration of my health and the collapse of my will power to realize that neither of these things truly nurtured my spirit. I was still trying to cleanse myself of weakness and prove my worth with the familiarity of unwinnable battles. But I had also honored my needs in my marriage so many time with all the kindness I could muster. And after being utterly demoralized by a demanding and manipulative coworker, I had stood before my team, my body and voice trembling at the verge of tears, and told them they had treated me with hostility. I remember hearing once that those who are truly courageous are not those who feel no fear, but those who act in spite of it. Because I have believed the stories about my sensitivity and fear, and have acted in my own best interest anyway, I have come to recognize my courage and now simply seek the people and places that will accept and support me as I accept and support myself.

But if I am not overcoming my fears and weaknesses, what is my life about? The momentum that has propelled me through my own inner hell over and over again is still there, longing for a righteous cause. Those who challenge society seldom fare well, but I have been born and bred for battle by developing the endurance of an outsider, the ability to speak unpopular opinions, and the resourceful adaptability to be self-sustaining. Increasingly, heroic tales like V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, and Lord of the Rings inspire me with possibility, and then leave me ashamed of my failure to choose one of any number of worthy causes and fully dedicate myself to it, preferring instead to focus on my comparably petty comfort and self-preservation.

For insight and guidance, I turned to a few of my favorite teachers. Steven Pressfield tells us that resistance, “the repelling force radiating from any work-in-potential”, is a natural part of manifesting our authentic gifts, and that pushing through it is the only true road to happiness. David Bedrick, however, challenges the belief that we must remain focused and push for success at all costs. “It has been failure,” he says, “that helped me to first hear my own voice, which came in response to feeling my shared humanity with others. It has been failure that awakened my heart, revealing the steps I needed to take in order to follow my own path.” What they seem to agree on is that failure and resistance are not forces to battle where ever they arise, but to use as guides towards discovering what our spirit truly loves.

Mark Manson furthers this idea by suggesting that our life’s passion is not something we go out and find – it is something we are already doing, something so innate to us that we take for granted that not everyone loves it. And what I consider to be my failure to fully commit to my dreams, he considers to be a sign that I don’t really want what I think I want. I want the thrill of adventure and exotic views without the weeks of planning, packing, moving, and trying to eat and rest in unfamiliar surroundings. I want the comfort of family without the demands of errands, chores, and squabbles. I want the prestige of a graduate degree without the years of academic research and writing. And I want the nobility of activism without tackling the overwhelming scale of our problems and rigidity of our systems. Everything I have abandoned I have done so not out simple fear or resistance, but because each compromised what I am beginning to realize I have always loved – being an integral, valued part of a friendly, energized community with ample freedom to day-dream, explore, and reflect on whatever fascinates me in the moment.

Chellis Glendinning says it is a mark of both individual and collective trauma that we are compelled to constant activity and vigilance, often without knowing why and regardless of the outcome. I could summon the ferocity of the Riders of Rohan to battle what I perceive as a threat, but perhaps I have been too accustomed to a slight becoming bullying, too quick to cry outrage at the slightest whiff of injustice, too willing to hold others accountable when we are all products of the same systems. While there are many worthy causes, the enemy is nuanced and complex. There is so much about our world that I do not understand and no matter what I choose to commit to, there will always be suffering and injustice to tolerate. Perhaps the battle is not about destruction, but about preserving what I love.

Those heroes that I most admire did not set out to prove themselves or attain glory. Fictitious Frodo, V, and Sonmi, flesh-and-blood Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, all simply acted in service of their conscience to defend what they loved. The battles we hear of are fleeting moments that may have never even come to them, while the vast majority of their work was an unsung, daily quest to develop and retain their inner freedom, generosity, and integrity. My courage is most potent when nurturing my spirit in world that often feels barren, singing my song in a space that often does not understand, and trusting that my passion for what I love is good enough. Like the characters in Cloud Atlas, my story could change the course of history. But most importantly, I love telling it, and that makes me feel like I matter, even if no one else ever knows.

Nancy

“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” – Mary Anne Radmacher