Courageous Talks at InSpiral Club
When heart and mind meet halfway
On Thursday, January 4th, 24 people popped up at the regular gathering of the InSpiral club in Budapest. Claudio joined us via Skype. The experiment went well: he could hear what we said and we could hear him when he was speaking. Yeah!
We started off with a short presentation.
We’ve learned that the word courage comes from the Latin “cor” = heart.
We can read Cor-age as the “time for the heart”. This definition resonates with us.
Indeed, we’re courageous when we’re able to silence the brain for a while and make a step that seems to be risky and dangerous. Because opening our hearts entails the risk of becoming vulnerable and getting hurt.
This is the only way we can truly connect to our deepest selves as well as to others: by opening our hearts.
We asked ourselves, what is the opposite of courage? We said fear, cowardice or shyness. All valid.
However, looking into the definition above, the opposite of “deciding with our hearts” is perhaps “deciding with our brain”.
So what if the contrary of courage was “analysis”?
Interesting fact: see what happened to the two words in the last century?
The word “analysis” was almost non-existent in 1800. However it overtook “courage” in the beginning of the 20th century. And then soared. It reached its peak in 1985. Interestingly enough, it’s been falling since then. Courage is slightly growing, after a slow but continuous decline from 1800 until 1995.
Yes, we need more heart and less brain in this world. More compassion and empathy. We cannot rely on the brain for everything. Analysis is dry.
During our conversations in smaller groups (3–4 people) and later in larger groups (12 people), few themes came up consistently. Here they are.
The pursuit of home
Heading to a different country or moving back home after a long time abroad are decision that we all call courageous. For some of us, it meant living a comfortable life and jump into the unknown. More than one person in the room had to take significant cut to his/her income to follow his/her heart. Heart won against analysis.
Someone had a different experience: he had no alternative but to move out of his home country. It was rather a brain-decision because of financial needs. And that’s understandable, of course.
By hearing all these stories, we could appreciate how life guides us to different decisions based on the challenges we’re facing, both externally and internally.
“Coming out” to what we’ve become.
For some of us, courage meant to face our family with our new set of ideas and beliefs, which did not necessarily correspond to what they believe at home. It happens when we realize that we don’t subscribe anymore to what we were taught when we were kids.
It’s a hard “outing”, isn’t it? Ultimately, we want to be loved and appreciated for who we are, even if we’ve shaped our opinions and view of the world differently from the home narrative. We converged to the opinion that in these cases it is probably wiser to avoid the trap of wanting to change our family members.
As we expect them to accept us for what we’ve become, we must approach them with the compassionate mindset of accepting them for what they are. We can peacefully “agree to disagree”.
Courage and change
Someone highlighted that it takes courage to make substantial changes into our life, even when the need for change is obvious: our long-held bad habits are in the way. However, inspired by someone who shows us how certain shifts of habits or mindsets can transform us, we can find the courage to make the required changes before a bigger suffering or a drama takes place.
On the same note, we agreed that often times courage is about “deconstructing and reconstructing” some aspects our lives, to unlearn habits or behaviors that didn’t work out. And learn new ones.
Like in arts, sometimes we need to be able to throw away drafts, or remove substantial parts of a work, to be able to unfold the desired results.
Something that finally convinces us, that feels complete.
As usual, inspiration is the catalyst.
Courage is the last push: the jump into the dark.
If lived consciously, the darkness will quickly turn into a sparkle of light.
A light that becomes brighter and brighter.
It’s the time of the heart.
Vale
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