Take the Courage That is Every Loving Leader’s Birthright
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———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-Sometimes, everything changes in an instant, and we don't know what to do.
I keep remembering a day in 1992. One moment, I am making dinner for my two young sons. The next moment a police officer is at my door telling me my husband’s airplane crashed. We leave immediately to fly to the hospital in Anchorage where I find him in a coma suffering a traumatic brain injury, forever changed.
Can you relate? In an instant…
You are fired from a job you love.
Your partner decides they want to break up.
Your home is destroyed by wildfire.
Your bank account is hacked.
You receive an unthinkable diagnosis.
Suddenly, what you knew to be true is gone, what's coming is not clear and you are disoriented, lost, grieving, and afraid.
Maybe you are feeling like this right now, in light of the sudden, massive upheaval underway.
Perhaps you too are watching stunned as societal norms, national identity, and economic stability are rapidly being dismantled? Are your plans, hopes, and dreams upended? Does the world feel much less safe and certain?
I feel it too. I’m bewildered, angry, frustrated and sad. And I’m not even someone with an identity or a job targeted, yet.
I've wrestled with how to “be” in all this.
First, I was sucked in and pulled under by headlines. I struggled to get anything done.
So, then I tried compartmentalizing, trying to focus and carry on. “Do what you do,” I tell myself, “Love is needed now.” But what I create feels disconnected from reality, because, well, it is. That's not going to work.
“How,” I wonder, “do I stay integrated in this time?”
And then I returned in my mind to the plane crash, to the hospital, the critical care unit, to the dark night of tears wondering if my husband would live. To the moment when my world turned upside down. I realized that experience offered a template I could use now.
That may seem a strange to turn to this tragedy for hope and direction. But tragedies can be our teachers.
Here's what I recall and how it gave me a way forward.
The night of the plane crash, I left the hospital and went to an apartment someone provided. The boys were asleep. I was alone in the dark.
I finally let myself cry and cry. In that dark night, I realized I had to imagine the worst. Not catastrophizing but looking into the abyss and figuring out what I would do if the worst happened. What if he never regained consciousness? What if he died? What if he lived but was severely incapacitated? What if?
I turned to my values with a new, clear-eyed understanding of what they meant in these situations. I recommitted to them, embraced them, and committed to how I would walk through those worst situations.
This resolve settled my mind and gave me a path forward.
Then in the morning and for years after, loving people showed up. I was surrounded by the practical, compassionate support of my family, close friends, and by strangers too. I was not alone.
All this helped me find the courage to meet that terrible moment. It is hard to imagine having courage when you don’t need it. It seems like the stuff of heroes. But the truth is that courage is available for each of us. Courage is our birthright as humans. This is why you can “Take Courage.”
So with values clarity, with loving community, and taking courage, I walked forward. It was an awful situation, with life-long consequences still reverberating today. But I remember now that I navigated it, and many other challenges, in a way that was integrated, authentic, and true to my values. If I did that then, I can do that now.
If this time of upheaval is landing hard on you, if you are disoriented and struggling with how to “be” in this, I understand. I feel it each day too, and I'm rediscovering how to take courage today. Maybe these steps from thirty years ago can help.
Embrace and rely on your Loving, human values.
Make a plan for the worst based on those values. This alignment brings inner strength.
Then turn to others! Do this in real life, not just online. Get together to knit, walk, play cards, cook, discuss books, fold clothes, play soccer, walk your dogs, anything. Be with others.
Take the courage that is your birthright. It's there for you.
I hope that helps someone reading today who needed this!
Do you have practices that sustain and encourage you right now? What is giving you courage to go forward? I'd love to hear from you. And if you want to talk, don't hesitate to reach out.
