Finding Inner Courage

A 3-SESSION WEBINAR GUIDED BY MARK NEPO
July 21, 28, Aug 4, 2024
1-2:30 pm EST | 10-11.30 am PST

The original notion of the word courage means to stand by one’s core. In this webinar, we will explore how to find our way to our core, to stand by our core, and to then sustain the practice of living from our core—to live out of our courage. To encourage means to impart strength and confidence, to inspire and hearten. So, the question unfolds: How do we encourage ourselves, each other, and the world? And just what does it mean to live a life of encouragement? This is an education we seldom receive in school, but which life keeps shouting at us all. This is an education of what matters.

For the courage we all admire—where ordinary people summon unexpected strength to run into burning buildings or to stand up to tyrants, whether an abusive father or an abusive leader, this inspiring and mysterious impulse to rise and meet a dangerous situation, which Hemingway referred to as grace under pressure—grows from another kind of courage: inner courage. By inner courage, I mean the ground of quiet braveries from which the more visible braveries sprout. These are the ways of living and being that make bravery possible in the first place; not just as an event, but as an approach to life, as a way of life.

Thinking about courage in this way opens us to an array of small and constant efforts that no one ever sees, but which have changed the world: the courage to feel, to see, to accept, to heal, to be. Efforts of this nature often go unnoticed and unrecognized. Like the courage to break life-draining patterns and let the story of our lives unfold. Like the courage to persevere through the doorway of nothing into the realm of everything. Like the courage to choose aliveness over woundedness, to remember what matters when we forget, and to build on the past instead of hiding in it. Like the courage to choose compassion over judgment and love over fear, to withstand the tension of opposites, and to give up what no longer works in order to stay close to what is sacred. These subtle yet essential states, and more, make up the elements of living, and so, it serves us well to explore how they grow singly and together.

This time together is an invitation to be in relationship with deep and life-giving material. Using ancient and contemporary stories, poetry, and metaphor, we will delve into the courage to listen to your own life, the gift of vulnerability, the willingness to experiment and explore your own voice, and the abiding commitment to respect your own journey and the journey of others. No experience is required, just a Beginner’s Mind and Heart. And a willingness to enter.

—Mark Nepo