For my 40th birthday my family took me on a picnic in the city and were so excited to reveal they’d bought tickets for the family to ride the Wheel of Brisbane, a 60 metre tall observational wheel comprised of glass gondolas. I feigned excitement (the surprise I didn’t have to fake) while my heart pounded and my lungs shallow breathed. White knuckled, I forced myself into the small gondola and sat down, gripping tightly the pole next to my too small seat. I stared straight ahead, not looking down, not looking sidewards lest I spy how high up our carriage was. Suddenly my family saw through my charade, and four very wrinkled brows accosted me. They were so sorry, they thought it would be fun, they didn’t know I’d respond with fear… but I decided to do it anyway and I survived the Wheel of Brisbane because I reached within and found that while I was 99% I-just-might-vomit-scared, I was also 1% brave.
No one feels 100% brave all the time and brave is not the absence of all fear. Sometimes we mistakenly see brave as a big thing, such as conquering ginormous tasks: giving a speech in front of 1000 without peeing your pants, asking your neighbour who’s been flirting with you out on a date or riding a glass gondola wheel 60 metres in the air. But mostly brave is recognising that we have uncomfortable feelings and sensations and choosing to do something anyway.
The secret to brave is to being a little brave as often as you can manage. Brave is collected within us in drips and drops, in small decisions, in moments that pass in micro-seconds. I believe that brave is always available, sometimes it’s 1% brave and 99% worry and fear. Taking a few slow breaths and seeking to find within ourselves that tiny 1% brave is a helpful mindfulness practice. It is good to discover where that 1% brave is within us (and sometimes it’s in our big toe or an eyelash). If we can imagine that tiny bit of brave being accessed, and giving it a voice that tells us we can do something, it might just be enough to get things done that feel scary.
The practise of being 1% brave helps build resiliency. Every moment of being brave is not wasted when that particular moment is gone, brave is collected within our body as evidence that we survived and therefore we can do hard/scary/unknown things again. When we face difficult things, allowing ourselves to feel the disconcerting physical sensations that worry, fear and anxiety can bring into our bodies we can also remind ourselves to seek out the brave within and allow ourselves to connect with that vast, deep inner resource.
Small moments of brave builds up within us like a small muscle being exercised. Repeating the exercise of courageous living with our 1% brave grows it to become 2% brave and that 2% rises within to strengthen to 3%. There is no limit to brave, but all brave starts with that teeny, tiny 1% whisper “I’ll give it a try.”
So, from my heart to yours, let me leave you with one of my favourite quotes which hangs on the wall about my art making space:
“Flourishing consists of a million moments of tiny courages.”