You’ve Been Courageous… You Just Never Called It That
If I’m being honest…
I didn’t always see myself as courageous.
The first time that word found me…
it didn’t come from me.
It came from another woman.
We were sitting side by side in the audience of a major event… music playing, drums beating, voices rising, dancers moving…
And yet…
when she leaned over, took my hand, and whispered in my ear…
“Where did you find the courage?”
…everything else went silent.
I didn’t hear the choir.
I didn’t hear the drums.
I didn’t even see the dancers anymore.
All I could hear…
was that whisper.
Where did you find the courage?
Because in my mind…
I hadn’t done anything courageous.
I had just divorced my husband of 20 years…
a man in a position of authority and leadership.
A decision that shook more than just my life.
But I didn’t call it courage.
I called it leaving…
while I still had a remnant of respect for him
and for myself.
That’s what I called it.
But her question forced me to look again.
And when I did…
my goodness…
I saw something I had never allowed myself to see before.
I had made courageous moves all throughout my life.
I just never named them that.
And once I did…
I couldn’t see myself the same way anymore.
I started to understand courage differently.
Not as something loud or dramatic…
but as something deeply aligned.
A unification of the heart and the mind.
And from that point on, I made decisions differently.
I checked both.
My heart… and my mind.
And when they agreed?
I moved.
Even if my voice was shaking.
Even if my hands were trembling.
Because now I knew what I was standing in.
Courage.
And let me tell you something, Angela…
Most of you are walking around doing courageous things every single day…
and calling it something smaller.
Responsibility.
Survival.
“I had no choice.”
No.
You chose.
And there’s courage in that.
You’ve been courageous…
you just never called it that.
If this spoke to you, tell me… what have you done that you never called courage?