EIght Seconds: Courage Requires Feeling Fear

Mess to Majesty: Let God Love You In Your Mess by Mukkove Johnson, available on Amazon.

You may think being brave or courageous means never feeling fear.

The opposite is true. If you didn't feel afraid, no courage would be needed.

You also might think that once you've been brave, that's it. You've won.

Also not true. You feel afraid. You use your courage to move ahead and overcome. You see the victory, and then fear comes again. Courage is needed again.

In my Mess To Majesty Coaching, I call this the Courage Cycle. Understanding it's a cycle keeps you from feeling like a failure when the fear returns.

To learn more about Mess to Majesty Coaching, email Mukkove at contact@mukkovejohnson.com

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Transcript

From Shame Cycle To Courage Cycle

What Courage Really Means

The Courage Cycle Explained

Doubt, Accusation, And Spiritual Pushback

The Woman Who Reached For Healing

Spotting The Voice Of Accusation

Eight Seconds Of Hard

Restored Identity And Being Seen

The Weight Of Labels

Self-Labels And Hidden Traps

Breaking Boxes And Choosing Connection

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Sometimes we think if I'm going to be courageous, I'm not going to be afraid. We actually can't be courageous without something to be afraid of. There has to be fear for us to be courageous because if there's nothing we're trying to overcome, then we wouldn't need the bravery. We wouldn't need the courage. Last week we talked about the shame cycle from the story of the woman at the well. There's a courage cycle too. Courage means lots of things to lots of people. So I like to start any topic basically with like vocabulary and defining this is exactly what I'm talking about when I use this word. The original definition of courage is from the Latin word cur, which means heart. And so the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. So I thought that's a really beautiful definition of courage. So that again was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And the Google definitions for courage: the first one is the ability to do something that frightens you. And the other is strength in the face of pain or grief. So the ability to do something that frightens one or strength in the face of pain and grief. Sometimes we think if I'm going to be courageous, I'm not going to be afraid. We actually can't be courageous without something to be afraid of. There has to be fear for us to be courageous because if there's nothing we're trying to overcome, then we wouldn't need the bravery. We wouldn't need the courage. So the courage cycle looks like making a move of courage and then being attacked by the enemy with doubt or fear or accusation or whatever he knows has worked on you in the past because he's keeping notes. He knows what works. So he will use the same things over because it saves him energy. So she heads out to the village and she hears the people. And then when she gets to the place where she's like, okay, this will work, then the thoughts come crashing back in again. What if I don't get healed? What if somebody sees me? You know, what if the crowd has pushed Jesus away? But then she lets courage rise again. Like, no, I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna trust that he's gonna get here because I know this is what I need. And then again, you know, the thoughts come rushing back. Look, you're such a mess, and why would this work for you? And why would the rabbi pay attention to you? And yet again, to let the courage rise up and reach out and touch his robe, you know. So just that calling it the courage cycle, that thinking I stepped out to be brave, and now I'm having all these insecurities, to not let the enemy tell you that you're failing or that you chose the wrong thing because now it's hard, or because now you have these doubts, you're doing the right thing. That's exactly why he's attacking you. And in paying attention when those voices are coming, if they're saying you are a failure, you don't measure up, who do you think you are? We don't talk to ourselves that way. We say, I'm a mess, or I'm a failure, or I did great, but we don't speak that way to ourselves. We don't say you are a failure. So that's a key that when you're hearing that way, you know, God speaks to that us that way too, not condemning, but you are my child, you are wonderful, you are beautiful. So knowing when you're hearing that you, someone else is speaking, it's not your thought. And if it's not an encouraging thought, then get rid of it. Don't listen to it anymore, you know. Or even like, okay, I know that's the enemy trying to push these buttons again, so I can just take that to the Lord and say, is there anything else I need to deal with here? Or can I just tell him to be quiet and leave me alone? And of course we can tell him to be quiet and leave us alone either way, but you know, we can take it to the Lord and be like, is there anything else I need to deal with on this? Or is he just harassing me? But to know when you step out and courage, he is going to, the enemy is going to harass you because that's obviously not what he wants you to be doing. You know, he didn't want that woman to be able to go out and be healed and to have a testimony that she was no longer unclean and that Jesus really did have the power of God to forgive sins and to heal her. And I love that he was willing not just to have her body healed, but to stop and acknowledge her in a place that she wasn't supposed to be, not only because of her uncleanness, but just by being a woman to approach the rabbi would have been very inappropriate. And for him to stop and acknowledge her in front of the crowd and call her out and call her daughter, that personal restoring identity to her after all of these years of having to be unclean and unworthy. He cares. It's not just about like him being God and being able to heal. He wants that relationship, he wants that identity restored to Brene Brown talks about being vulnerable and like getting up the courage to have a hard conversation or whatever. And she says that it's been studied, the like super anxiety, super hard part lasts for eight seconds. And so writable, it's eight seconds of like we build it up to like so big, and like I just can't handle this. And she's like, the research shows it's eight seconds. Like if you just push through once you start, then you know that courage and God's strength comes in, and yeah, maybe it's not fun, but we are made for this and we can do it. Hang on for those eight seconds, just to know we will survive. And have the love of a tender father that understands how hurt and how scared, and he's totally okay with it. You know, makes it easier to because that was a picture I had for a long time of God sitting, arms folded across his chest. He was so big, I was sitting in the crook of his arm, head against his chest, and I spent a lot of time there just crying and feeling safe and experiencing things. I couldn't even see his face. I could be close and be okay. The other thing that I thought of out of her story was the labels and how damaging labels are. So, like she was labeled unclean, which was very well-intentioned. It was to keep people safe because they didn't have all of the technology we have to keep people safe in those situations. So it was well-intentioned, but it was still wounding. Labels dehumanize and they disconnect us because now rather than being a woman, being my neighbor, being whatever her name was, she's unclean. Or whatever other labels that we can come up with, labels they dehumanize and they break us into us and them, Democrats and the Republicans. It's a label, it's an automatic divide because you fit in one or the other. And it's just that mentality of evangelical or charismatic, black or white, type A, type B, introvert, extrovert. Like it doesn't matter what the label is if we're not careful, it's a way to set up a division rather than to inform. We could take that as information that's helpful to understand someone, or especially in our hurried culture, to just be like, oh, I know what they're like because they have that label. And they're either like me or they're not, because I have that label or I don't. And so just stood out to me how labeling others or allowing others to label us just creates such a disconnect and like a confidence on someone's part that I can know them because I know this label about them instead of really getting to know someone. Um but then also like we can label ourselves and put ourselves in boxes because of labels we've given ourselves. And um, one of the examples he gave me was when he told me I was a lighthouse. I was like, no, I'm not. But I don't know, just the idea that lighthouses were strong. And I was like, okay, that's a label I can accept. Like I'll label myself strong. But it wasn't actually a healthy label because my idea of strong was you didn't need anything. Like you were kind of, you know, that I'm an island kind of thing. Like I'm strong enough to do this all on my own. And so, of course, the next thing he told me was that lighthouses have needs. So, like, break down that idea of strong right there. But so, like having that label of myself, like, okay, I'm strong, meant I can handle this. And, you know, so there was all this stuff that went with that label that wasn't wasn't accurate and wasn't helpful. Um so just, you know, labels can hurt our relationships with others, but it can hurt our relationship with ourselves too, if we, you know, label ourselves as not good at something, or you know, if we take on a label that the culture wants to give of just a mom or you know, just whatever those different labels are, if we take them on, they can kind of keep us, keep us in a box because we I don't know, like it just like my idea of strong, it comes with a whole set of stuff if we're not conscious of that, you know, being a victim to something like that comes with a whole lot of stuff that you don't actually have to take. But if you're not being aware of it, if you take on that label or put that label on somebody else, it just keeps you from really getting close and getting to know who you're talking to or understanding their story because you've got this false confidence of knowing, because you've got this label.