At the altar; sitting with Courage (part 1)
I was merely two years old, and my six-year-old sister was confidently walking on the edge of an empty swimming pool, which was a large pool two meters in height. I stepped in to follow her, and she looked at me, saying that I should not follow her because if I fell, it would be a bad one. A couple more steps, and then the next moment, I remember opening my eyes, and there were screams— a very high volume of fear—and some liquid flowing through my eyes. I am getting stitches, smiling at my mom to calm her nervous system. She looks very distressed, and I am apprehensive about my sister. I am worried that my mom is going to kill her, so I keep smiling at my mom and pretending that all is good while getting stitches. I think you would say, that for a two-year-old child, getting stitches and not crying is very courageous. But, of course, my reaction was not coming from the muscle of well-intended courage. In fact, maybe in some way, my courageous action of following my sister's steps along the edge of the swimming pool got punished in a dramatic way through my mom’s unregulated emotions and screams. So, for many years, my courageous actions were frozen in a box under my bed. What is your personal story with courage? When and how did your courage go underground? Or in some cases, did it become overloaded, leading you to make very risky choices that jeopardized your life? How does a healthy courage feel to you?