Nature Loves Courage
When I first left home at age twenty-four, I had no job, no place to stay and less than a few hundred dollars to my name. But I did have my spiritual teacher’s advice running on repeat in my head. “Life is benevolent,” she wrote. “I would be down to my last dollar and something would always show up - a tax rebate, a small inheritance, a job, a gift. I had twenty years like that and learned to trust life.”
That initial act of courage and willingness to trust in something bigger than myself has stayed with me all my life. I had to trust that I would earn enough income working sporadically as a substitute teacher. I learned to trust that my voice mattered enough to create online courses before they became profitable. I had to trust that I could leave my teaching job of twelve years for nothing but faith and pixie dust in San Miguel.
But I’ve also had to learn to trust simpler, gentler guidance: that I needed to stay in a relationship even when it got difficult, trusting what foods to feed my body, even if my diet wasn’t ‘spiritually sound’ and trusting therapists before looking at their credentials.
And ultimately, by trusting consistently, in both small and difficult ways, I’ve learned to trust in the biggest truth of all: that nature loves courage.
How do I know that? Because having courage makes me feel alive, and life is surely on the side of aliveness. Because having courage makes my heart sing, and life is surely on the side of love. Because having courage makes me see the impossible - if only in my imagination, where all great dreams begin.
Life has put desires in my heart but it has also presented me with obstacles: my impatience, fear and self-doubt. And the only way I’ve found to overcome them has been with courage. In a way, the universe seems to be saying: “You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.” I know that sounds like quite the feat, but imagine all that you have to give up on the road to your dreams.
I have learned to give up my false sense of knowing, my desire for control, my obstinacy around what I take to be true, old and cherished self-identities, self-criticism, sluggishness and my compulsion to pack up my toys and move to another sandbox when I don’t get immediate results. I’ve given all of that up and gained grit, tenacity and self-discipline.
But I’ve gained so much more than those resume virtues. I’ve woken up to the truth of who I am. After all, what is awakening if not seeing through the false human costume? And what good is discovering who you really are if you’re not manifesting it in the world?
Our true nature is courageous because our true nature is love. It’s no coincidence that the word courage is derived from the French word coeur, which means heart. Courage comes from love and leads right back to it. The more courageous I become, the more I see that life is a loving, benevolent force.
Isn't it amazing how every facet of who we are, whether it’s creativity or kindness or wisdom leads us back to our True Self? It’s like a stream which flows out and back to its origin. And courage is just one facet of that stream. As you act with courage in the world, you’ll be amazed to see what you discover about your true nature. By hurling yourself off of cliffs big and small, you will touch the inner alchemical gold - the true source of transformation. You will watch as life morphs around you to support your deepest longings. And you will dance with abandon to discover that all Life wants from you is return to the innocence of your own heart. After all, nature loves courage, but it loves you even more.
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”
References
Trusting Life by Gina Lake
Peter Pan by Walt Disney
True Hallucinations by Terence McKenna
Trusting Your Heart is my Aura meditation on listening to the greatest barometer of truth in creation: your own precious heart. You can access a free Aura trial membership here.