Brave

This poem reframes courage not as the absence of fear, but as our willingness to act while fear is present.

Sometimes the only way to discover that something frightening does not have the power we imagined is to encounter it directly and survive the encounter.

Being brave does not require us to stop feeling afraid first.

It begins when fear is no longer allowed to make the choice for us.

I think I once imagined courage and fear as opposites.

If I were truly brave, perhaps I would feel confident. Certain. Ready. Unshaken.

But increasingly, I have found that courage can feel remarkably similar to fear. Moroever, the only way I actually recognize courage is by noticing the fear first:

“Did no one ever tell you
That courage feels
The same as fear?”

This is not an original idea, and I don't claim it as one. The understanding that courage is not the absence of fear, but action in its presence, has been expressed in countless forms by people long before I wrote this poem.

What interests me is what happens when I actually try to live from that understanding. Because reframing courage this way changes my relationship with the sensation of fear itself:

The racing heart does not necessarily disappear. Neither does the nervousness, uncertainty, tension, or impulse to retreat.

What changes is what I choose to do with those sensations. That is why the poem immediately reframes bravery:

“Being brave means
Feeling fear
But choosing still to face
What scares you now”

Courage does not require fear to leave before I act. As we've been examining, fear is the prerequisite for courage.

There is nothing particularly brave about doing something that does not frighten me. The opportunity for courage appears precisely because some part of me wants to turn away. And sometimes I think the only way to change my relationship with a fear is to discover something experientially that reassurance alone cannot teach me.

I can tell myself:

• I'll be okay.
• I can handle this.
• This fear doesn't control me.

But those remain ideas until something allows me to experience them as true. That is what I mean by:

“To face it and survive is proof
You are more real
Than what you fear”

I like “more real” here. Fear can create extraordinarily convincing realities.

• It can project futures that have not happened.
• It can turn possibilities into apparent certainties.
• It can make an imagined consequence feel so immediate that my body responds as though it were already occurring.

But then there is me.

Actually here. Actually choosing. Actually moving. Actually encountering whatever exists beyond the projection.

The lived experience becomes more real than the imagined one.

There is, however, a distinction I think is essential here:

Not all fear should be challenged.

Our instinctive survival fear is extraordinarily important. Our bodies and nervous systems are constantly perceiving information, often faster than our conscious minds can process it. Sometimes fear arises because something in us has recognized genuine danger. That fear deserves respect.

If my body is telling me that a person, place, animal, situation, or immediate circumstance may be dangerous, I do not think bravery requires me to override that signal to prove that I can.

Quite the opposite. Listening to survival fear can itself be an expression of courage, self-trust, and wisdom.

The fear this poem is primarily interested in is different.

It is anxious fear: fear generated or sustained by thought, anticipation, projection, conditioning, and imagined possibilities.

• What if I fail?
• What if they reject me?
• What if I embarrass myself?
• What if I disappoint someone?
• What if I make the wrong choice?
• What if something goes wrong?

These fears can produce very real sensations in the body. But the realness of the sensations does not make the danger they anticipate equally real. Though it does create the same impact (stress, tension, inflammation, etc.) in my body as if they were real, which is part of the problem.

Unlike survival fear, I don't think these fears should automatically be obeyed. I think they should be examined.

• What am I actually afraid will happen?
• Is there evidence that I am in danger?
• Is this fear alerting me to something happening now, or projecting something that might happen later?
• What would the actual consequences be?
• What might I discover if I moved toward this fear carefully rather than automatically retreating from it?

That distinction matters because the point is not to become someone who ignores fear. I want to become someone who can discern what my fear is telling me.

Sometimes fear says: "This is dangerous. Get away." I want to listen.

Sometimes fear says: "This is uncertain. You might get hurt. You might fail. You might be rejected. Don't risk finding out." That is where courage may ask me to move closer.

That does not mean every fear is irrational. Fear often contains substantial information. Sometimes it identifies genuine danger, and courage may mean respecting that information rather than charging recklessly toward it.

Nor do I think every fear needs to be confronted in the most extreme way possible. There is a difference between courage and self-endangerment.

But there are also fears whose primary function has become limitation:

• Fear of rejection.
• Fear of failure.
• Fear of being seen.
• Fear of disappointing someone.
• Fear of setting a boundary.
• Fear of trying something unfamiliar.
• Fear of discovering that what I hope for might not happen.

When I continually organize my life around avoiding those fears, they acquire tremendous power. Not necessarily because the feared thing has happened, but because avoiding it prevents me from discovering what would happen if I faced it.

That is the sense in which I understand:

“It has no power over you”

I don't mean fear has no influence. Clearly it does.

I don't mean frightening circumstances cannot affect or hurt me. They can.

I mean fear does not possess final authority over my actions simply because I feel it.

I still get to choose.

And each time I act from that choice, I gain evidence that fear is something I can experience without necessarily obeying.

That brings me to the poem's final claim:

“Brave enough to face it now
So that
Your fear can be erased”

Today I would probably qualify “erased.” Some fears do disappear once confronted. Others diminish. Some return in different forms. And some have to be met repeatedly before our bodies begin to believe what our minds have already learned.

But I don't think that makes the line untrue. What can be erased is the version of fear that depended upon never finding out.

• The unquestioned story.
• The imagined certainty.
• The belief that because I am afraid, I cannot.

Facing fear introduces evidence. Sometimes that evidence confirms that caution was warranted. Sometimes it teaches me that I need more support, preparation, or safety.

And sometimes I cross the threshold and discover that the terrifying thing was survivable—or that what waited beyond it was something I could never have reached while organizing my life around avoidance.

Perhaps courage is therefore not a feeling I need to summon before facing fear. Perhaps courage is what I call the act of facing it while still afraid.

But discernment comes first.

I don't want to teach myself that bravery means overriding the animal wisdom that helps keep me alive. I want to become better at recognizing the difference between fear that says protect yourself and fear that says limit yourself.

The first deserves my attention.

The second deserves my curiosity.

Fear says don't go.

• Sometimes wisdom answers: I won't.
• And sometimes bravery answers: I'm going anyway.