EMOTIONAL COURAGE

    There are several forms of courage. The most powerful one is emotional courage. It briefly means to be open to both positive and negative emotional experiences. Courage is not the absence of fear. It is to challenge the fear. The only emotion in life is not fear. There are core emotions such as anger, shame, sadness, happiness, enjoyment. Emotional courage appears when we face these emotions. Showing emotional courage is not always easy. However, there are some ways to practice it.

First of all, we should not suppress negative emotions such as sadness, grief, fear to develop emotional courage. It is not possible to always be happy every moment of our lives. What makes life meaningful is our emotions, both positive and negative. For instance, courage does not mean fearlessness. A brave man is not someone who is afraid of nothing; he is someone who conquers that fear.

Secondly, we should act on our emotions even if we are afraid of the outcomes. For example, let's assume that you will go to a job interview. Even if you know that you may be rejected, you should go to that interview. Developing emotional courage starts with taking risks. This is also valid in interpersonal relationships. We should not always think about negative things. We need to be able to think that we will feel good afterwards.

Lastly, we should be able to be open to vulnerability. We cannot always be strong or resistant against all situations. We can be down, we can be disappointed or we can make mistakes. However, what is important is to be aware of faults and not blame others for failures. We should learn from our mistakes without punishing ourselves or avoiding them. We should be honest with ourselves about what we can do or not do.

In a nutshell, emotional courage is not to escape our emotions. It is to know that all emotions are worth living. Therefore, to improve emotional courage, we should not suppress either negative or positive emotions, we should act without fear no matter what results are and we should be vulnerable, truthful and honest with ourselves.

                                                                                                                                       Seher Çakmar