Cultivating courage when you’re lost at sea

I had a chat with someone the other day. I’m always amazed that the courage people have to reach out for a chat with someone they’ve never met before.

She is in the really messy middle part of a big life (and career) change. It was clear from the soft and fragile tone of her voice down the other end of the phone that she was feeling lost, scared and alone. It was also clear, from the quiet determination behind her words, that her real potential was still untapped and was desperately crying to be released.

When we feel lost and scared reaching out for help can be absolutely terrifying, detrimental even.

Change is very, very messy. No one loves a mess on that kind of scale. Our loved ones, they don’t want to see us in a mess because they care about us. They want to help us tidy because tidy equals happy. So they offer solutions and plans. It really is coming from a loving and good place. We do this to ourselves too. I do it, you do it, we all do it. We start trying to map out the plan. We seek certainty in the hope that it will direct, soothe and solve us (and fast). We start controlling because the pain of feeling lost and stuck becomes too much.

This can be detrimental as when we’re stuck and overcome with fear. The last thing we’re ready for is immediate action. Action requires energy and courage but if we are exhausted and lost we aren’t ready to move forward just yet. So when people suggest solutions and more things to do (that we just don’t have the energy for) this can add shame and disappointment to the already heavy load of anguish that we’re carrying.

I believe that the pain we feel during these times It’s actually our potential trying to break through and forward.

Our potential, purpose, innate gift, calling — whatever you want to refer to it as — is the most natural and unique thing about us. It’s a creative force within us that exists solely to come through us. We don’t get to control what it is. We don’t get to control the meandering path (or rigorous rollercoaster ride) it takes us on. We do however get to decide whether we listen to it, trust it and act on it.

It’s all a process. We are all a creative process.

We can’t nip a creative process in the bud and we can’t press fast forward on it either. We have to meet ourselves exactly where we are in the process, with honesty, patience and compassion.

When we are creating a big change in our life, the key is that we are creating it. Creation is birthed from love and safety. We can’t create from a place of fear. The last thing a creative process needs is a rigid plan. The creative process is uncertain and navigating uncertainty requires courage.

Courage is cultivated when we feel grounded, connected and safe. Feeling truly understood and listened to can move us out of fear and into love in an instance. Courage needs fuel in the form of compassion.

When we’re lost at sea, courage is what enables us to take the next step forward.

When we’re feeling lost at sea and we reach out for help, like this person did the other day, what we really need is someone to listen and love us. If they’re going to say anything at all, it needs to be along the lines of…

You’re doing so well.
You have done so much already.
Where can we remove some pressure?
What do you need most right now?
Let the tears out.
Breathe.
You are safe. You are supported.
You are so loved.
Everything is going to be ok.
I believe in you.

The next step is hers and it’s a hard one — to give herself permission to honour and trust her process. To cultivate courage and trust the action plan will unfold from here. It won’t make much sense to anyone else. It might look like steps backwards but it’s not. It’s her life expanding and evolving. It’s her potential being birthed.

I believe that mess has meaning and is leading us somewhere beautiful, somewhere truthful and somewhere that will all make so much sense once we get there.