To live a life courageous

To live a life courageous

“Courage  is not at all

about being fearless…”

In my line of work I come across a lot of courageous and inspiring women. These are ordinary women from all walks of life, women from poor backgrounds and women with wealth and opportunity. Some might say only certain people have the courage to lead, to say and do what they believe in and to do something extraordinary, but I would like to disagree. I believe courage is a core capacity in all of us, an energy waiting to be tapped, a creative force ready to emerge.

This week, I would like to celebrate courage and share what it means to me.

The first thing I would like to share with you about courage is that it is not at all about being fearless.

Sometimes courage comes from being so sick of fear and insecurity limiting your life, telling you that you can’t, that you are not good enough, that you will do whatever it takes to prove it wrong. Getting to the point of enough – enough of being small, enough of not seeing what I want happening in my life- is the point at which courage is born.

For me the biggest challenge has been to have the courage to be myself. The courage to share what I feel and believe to be true, to live life with integrity.

The other thing I must tell you about courage is its not a heroic one time affair. It is a day-by-day, each step of the way effort, it is determination and hard work, it requires patience and consistent action but mainly I would say it is a choice. A choice and a commitment to yourself, to your own value, love and self-worth.

Sometimes courage can be as fundamental as the choice to keep living, sometimes it is the choice to die with compassion and presence. For me it has been the choice to stop hiding from life and from my true greatness. To do and be what I never thought possible.

In rural India, a lot of women make a choice to give up on life. To end their lives due to lack of hope or not seeing a way out of the difficult circumstances they are in. And there are other women who make a commitment to themselves to never give up. That their life and that of their children are too important. That they are willing to do whatever it takes to take responsibility, for creating change or just simply living with more self-acceptance and compassion.

It is not just in the developing world that people get to this level of desperation. We have all at times faced the darkness in ourselves, been hurt, abused, believed that life was too hard and not worth living and sometimes it is only by getting to rock bottom that we can muster the strength and determination to keep living, to begin to make slow and steady progress in our lives, to remember again why we are here and what we long for. For it is in the longing and the dreaming that we take the steps to transformation, in taking full responsibility for ourselves and our lives that we can begin to live a life of purpose.

This is the message I have always wanted to share with the women (and men) who believe they have nothing to offer to this world, that who they are and what they choose can have a tremendous impact. I want to tell them: know that I believe in you and that you are here for a reason, that this life is precious and worth living no matter what difficulty you face.

You have my greatest respect and I trust that you will continue to find the courage within.

Love,

Katherine

For Meena, beloved friend and mother of two beautiful daughters, who chose to end her life age 28 I write this for you. Thank you for sharing your beauty, love and joy with me for a short time. You will always be in my heart.

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Pathway to Potential is a registered charity supporting underpriveledged women in developing countries to reach their full potential through cooperative enterprise. Currently working in Tamil Nadu, south east India and now beginning to work in Thailand and other parts of Asia, Pathway to Potential sincerely hopes and dreams that this work and model can be shared and replicated around the world.

If you want to know more you can reach Katherine at info@pathwaytopotential.org