Courage..
My 2000th post... seems fitting somehow..
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...93&postcount=1
COURAGE
Courage is a mental attitude that finds it's expressions through words, gestures, feelings and deeds. It can be cultivated or enhanced, but it is not, itself, an emotion. It involves emotions and it can certainly change your emotions, but it arises from thought, and is supported by "right thinking". That is, it is supported in part by what we pay attention to; what we allow ourselves to see, experience, feel, absorb and express; how we liberate the potentials of consciousness.
This notion - that is courage is, or arises from a mental attitude - brings courage to reach. We can't always choose our feelings. They are like the elements: wind. rain, fog, cloud, snow, heat. They come and go. And we can run after them, even when they seem a little reluctant to choose us.
Courage is a way of living in the world. It arises out of the cultivation of an attitude that you can bring to any situation, even when you feel at your worst. It is courage that is needed when a crisis has long ceased to be exciting and has become instead a new version of your old life to which you must adjust..
Courage is what allows you to experience that even when life has apparently betrayed you, or you have come to see how you have betrayed yourself, life itself is still present. In the presence of life, or maybe in the presence of your own consciousness of the life that is within you, it is impossible to be totally diminished by events that are outside you, or are outside your control, no matter how deeply and permanently they affect you. It is possible - with time, self-love, compassion and some creativity - nethertheless to find some pleasure, some joy..
Courage can be admired from any distance, but it can be discovered for oneself only through lived experience. Sometimes this has to be achieved in the midst of drudgery and hardship. Sometimes it is found through an experience of intense physical achievement that brings supreme joy as intention and action unite. Often though, courage takes on meaning through an experience of profound suffering when what had seemed eternal or essential dissolves or disappears, and your faith in life, in yourself, or in God, hits the line..
You lose a beloved person, a job, a relationship, your health, a sense of continuity with your own life. You flounder, shout, wail, panic, become depressed, blame, roar, retreat: whatever your own way is of expressing distress or outrage that life has betrayed you. And then days, weeks or years later you move from that outward place. You move onwards, inwards. Not neatly, not conclusively. But somehow you face it - whatever "it" is. You face the truth of that suffering within yourself. You face the truth of it, and the truth that it will not be adequately met with facile solutions or other people's platitudes, but only with your own version of strength and compassion.
"Existence," warn the analyst Irvin D.Yalom, "cannot be postponed.". In not postponing existence, in not postponing life - while also acknowledging how you feel and how great your need is - courage stirs and comes awake.
Peace be with you.
(Stephanie Dowrick)
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Originally Posted by Virago
& the KB Southern Gathering this weekend!!!! 
Waiting for the story, BD.
There is no such thing as bad weather; only inappropriate clothing! 
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