Quiet courage

Today, I want to honor all the courage that you and I pour into each of the actions that shape our everyday lives; actions that make our life that audacious, fertile, and vividly alive experience.

I am not referring here to the courage it takes to step onto a stage, to face a colleague’s explanations, or to leap off a bridge with a bungee cord. These moments are exceptional enough that we can anticipate them and consciously build up the resilience necessary to overcome them. What I want to speak to—and to honor—are all those moments we tend to label as “normal.” Because by doing so, we quietly underestimate the effort it takes to set ourselves in motion so as to make these moments come into being, and to keep them alive.

Courage does not need to be exceptional to be worthy of celebration.

I want to honor all those moments when we dare to say “no” in order to say "yes" to ourselves; when we choose to protect the boundaries of what feels comfortable to us, and allow only those who know how to care for them to cross that threshold.

To those who had the courage to say no in order to say yes to themselves,

To those who preserved their inner balance by refusing to over-adapt,

To those who invested energy today in having their limits respected,

I say well done, and thank you 🙏

Today, I also simply want to celebrate the courage of those who got up this morning 🙌. Because yes—given the ambient gloom, we would have had many reasons to stay in bed, to give up and surrender. And yet, this morning, you and I chose the movement of life. We got up, got dressed, and stepped out to meet the day and breathe energy into our projects.

I want to honor the courage it took to face the cold and the tiny stresses it creates on and within the body. The courage it took to offer that service, to carry out that task, to respond to that message in order to nourish the bond that connects us to its sender.

Think of the last time you took the time to resolve a sticking point that had been weighing down your life or that of those close to you, at work, within your family, or among friends. Well then: BRAVO for that. Congratulations for the energy you mobilized, and for the obstacle you overcame.

We are immersed in a culture where courage is only deemed worthy if it rises to the scale of the challenge it addresses. What ingratitude ! Let us stand up for the recognition of these spaces of quiet courage - those sparks of life which, when woven together, create the path of our days, draw smiles on the faces we encounter, and carry us forward toward the fulfillment of our goals.

These micro-commitments that allow us to reach our macro-results.

Congratulations and thank you for all of this. Remember to celebrate your day !

Michael

Photos credits : Thank you to :
- Juan chavez on Unsplash
- Erik Mclean on Unsplash
- Abishanth Ahilan on Unsplash
🙏