#Reverb14, Day 13

1. Step one: set the timer for 5 minutes and write down as many answers as you can think of to the question: 'When and how was I brave in 2014?' Note: remember the private, intimate and small ways in which you were brave as well as the big public ways.

Step two: Choose one of more of those moments of bravery and write a letter yourself back at the beginning of 2014, letting you know how brave you are going to be that year.

Step three: Write yourself a short reminder to tuck into your wallet or post above your desk of just how brave you can and will be in 2015.

2. On writing: Chances are, if you’re participating in #reverb it’s because you like writing.  Or at least want to like writing.  Writing is like a muscle.  Use it or lose it.  What do you do every day to hone your craft?  Or, what would you like to do each day to contribute to your writing?

1. Well, you already know from these prompts that I think my bravest moments were centered around going to the cardiologist and doing some testing and then going to the electrophysiologist and getting an ablation. Each of those moments, each appointment or phone call, required a measure of bravery. Each side effect of the medications I was put on required bravery to power through and be patient. Each missed event because of how I felt also required bravery. And after the ablation, it was a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop: I was hypervigilant about every twitch and twinge and throb anywhere in my chest. Scary things went through my head, but I tried to be brave about it.

I wouldn't have believed it had I an inkling at the beginning of 2014, honestly. So no letter. I have already written my love letter to myself.

And my touchstone in 2015 will be what it's been in 2014: if not now, when? That almost always requires bravery to answer.

2. I do love writing to prompts because it does require a commitment to writing every day, or at least planning to write daily. Sometimes I fall a few days behind, like today. But I'm here, I'm answering the prompt. And I'll post the result.

At our monthly Writers Forum meeting yesterday, one of our members told Tony that she writes a poem every morning. I like that. I like that we go to the Writers Forum meetings, although we've missed some, and associate with others who love the craft and are writing and publishing. I love the idea of writing a poem every morning. Poetry is a form I used to write long ago, and have worked at it off and on, mostly off. Maybe it's time to try it again and see what comes out. 

We also have chosen The Daily Writer as one of our morning readings for 2015, and there is a prompt every day. That may be good for both of us to stimulate our minds and writing.

April Moon 14: Day 1 -- Courage

A new writing prompt series from Kat McNally, she of Reverb and August Moon and probably others that I am forgetting!

This one is for 14 days, sort of a check-in with oneself, and I am grateful for the reminders and for the timing.

Read more about it here. And play along. 


Today's prompt: Courage

What feelings does this word evoke? What sorts of memories does it recall? Which of your senses start to tingle? How would you represent what this word means to you?

So I'm slow actually getting started although I began this post on time and have been contemplating the concept for several days.

Courage is taking action because you simply cannot be where you are any longer, which is different from moving from one place to another because you physically cannot stay where you are. I believe courage can be both planned and spontaneous: either way, it requires coming to a place of non-acceptance within yourself for what your current circumstances are, and choosing to create or go to a different state of circumstances. Courage is always a bit scary, if not at the time, definitely in retrospect.

I'm not sure that makes sense even to me.

I know that it takes courage to walk into a classroom on your first day of school where you know no one. It takes courage to take off the training wheels on your bike or tell your dad to let go of the seat so you can pedal it all by yourself. It takes courage to read out loud a poem or a story created from your imagination to an audience. It takes courage to move to a new city and begin again, especially by yourself. It takes courage to ask a doctor for medical tests that you are terrified to do because you are terrified that they will show that your deepest fears are, in fact, accurate. (Yeah, I'm kind of there....)

I've done all these things and more. Courage has brought me tears, anxiety, opportunity, and great love. It excites me, scares me, challenges me, and sometimes eludes me, at least for a time. It is risk-taking at its deepest level: the interior risk, the risk to your well-being, your core self.

Mixed up with the idea of courage, at least for me, is the concept of faith. And no image for me more clearly identifies courage/faith than the one in the movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," where, desperate to save his father from dying, Indy steps off a ledge hoping that something will be there to keep him from falling.

(Oddly enough, this exact scene and movie was referenced in our daily reading this morning, in the book The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Marc Nepo. I have always loved the courage/faith image.) 

We find courage within to do something that we believe will make our lives better for the action. We find courage to do terrifying things because somewhere we have faith that no matter what, it will be all right. Like Indy, we step out into the abyss of not knowing, hoping desperately that there will be the strong rock bridge that will catch and hold us up. So far, so good....


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Another introspective opportunity I've been doing this week is the free Oprah-Deepok Chopra "Finding Your Flow" 21-day meditation series.  Follow the link to register and you can listen to the daily meditations. I am finding them strengthening and very helpful as I navigate this journey, and I am grateful for the opportunity.