Where Does Your Courage Come From?
Posted 09-15-2008 at 07:16 PM by Austin Blue
Everyday I'm working with people who have shown incredible amounts of individual courage. They have such strength to see flaws in themselves and want to get help to move forward.
In therapy - counselling I am always fascinated in where this courage comes from.
I ask questions that open the path to communication such as: "tell me a time when you were able to move through that...what was it like". My interest is in making them reflect that there were indeed moments before in their past when they were drug or alchohol free. I want to hear how they managed to move through triggers. What was different that time? If it worked before, can it work now?
How does someone who is a victim of torture find the strengh to continue living even though they have been through horrible indiginities to their personal self. A situation: a girl tells her mother that her brother has been molesting her. When she tells her mother, her mother then holds her head down in a bathtub filled with water. How do you move through that? What was it like to move though it?
How do youth who have a mother and grandmother who are both with addictions, and a brother who molests her, move through this and seek both detox and treatment for their addictions?
Perhaps it's a younger sibling that they love and want to be a good mentor to that sibling? Maybe it's something else. Whatever it is, if they can hold onto that and use it when times are tough - then that is something to use.
Courage.
In therapy - counselling I am always fascinated in where this courage comes from.
I ask questions that open the path to communication such as: "tell me a time when you were able to move through that...what was it like". My interest is in making them reflect that there were indeed moments before in their past when they were drug or alchohol free. I want to hear how they managed to move through triggers. What was different that time? If it worked before, can it work now?
How does someone who is a victim of torture find the strengh to continue living even though they have been through horrible indiginities to their personal self. A situation: a girl tells her mother that her brother has been molesting her. When she tells her mother, her mother then holds her head down in a bathtub filled with water. How do you move through that? What was it like to move though it?
How do youth who have a mother and grandmother who are both with addictions, and a brother who molests her, move through this and seek both detox and treatment for their addictions?
Perhaps it's a younger sibling that they love and want to be a good mentor to that sibling? Maybe it's something else. Whatever it is, if they can hold onto that and use it when times are tough - then that is something to use.
Courage.
Total Comments 3
Comments
 |  I am unsure about what you are wanting but I will just simply say that it takes a lot more than courage to overcome things. Sometimes, the only savior is oneself. If you aren't being helped with a problem...you HAVE to solve your own problems. It is sad but that is unfortunately the truth. There are a lot of people in abusive environments. Maybe, it is God's way of testing us. Seeing whether or not we have the power of God to change the situations into better beneficial ones. Think of it. Every bad situation you have or will encounter is an opportunity for good things to be worked into that so that the bad is either eradicated or the force of the blow will not be too damaging. |
  Updated 09-15-2008 at 09:37 PM by invisibleman |
| |  Courage means different things to different people. There are certainly dramatic example of great courage: Gandhi, MLK, etc. We all take inspiration from them when we hear about them. But I think there are many instances of courage that often pass unnoticed and unsung. Courage also means not quitting: Getting up and carrying on, even if imperfectly, after having been knocked down. I admire that courage just as much. |
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| |  Saying "within" doesn't seem a fully adequate response to the question, but in a nutshell, that's the deal. It seems highly unlikely that I'm able to enact change through complacency, so my courage to act comes from a desire to change my situation. It's basically a response to stressors. My Fight/Flight Response is pretty much stuck on Fight. |
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