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courage
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 All
creative processes require courage. It takes bravery to take that first
step towards doing anything new. . . but creative processes generate
even
more fear than other first steps because they are, in a way, a birthing
process. ....
Whenever
you create something new -- or even express the desire to do so --
there
will be someone in your life that will discourage you. "Don't do that!
You'll fail! You'll be embarrassed! No one will like it!" |
Maybe
that someone will be inside your own head. There are many reasons that
people will try to discourage you.
Sometimes it is out of a genuine
fear
that you will be hurt. Sometimes it is because they are not fulfilling
their own creative destiny and seeing you about to take a step towards
your own future makes them uncomfortable to the point that they will
try
to prevent you from reaching your goals at any cost.
from article the courage to
create -
by Tera Leigh [on her site]
|
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....
..
..
Risk
taking
is a funny thing. Each time you risk, it becomes easier to do.
That's
because each time you go for it, it further reinforces your self-esteem
and offers concrete evidence that you can indeed succeed.
When
Wynonna was learning to do shows without me, she was asked to sing her
first hit single, "She Is His Only Need," at the American Music Awards
show.
Dick
Clark and I were backstage, extremely concerned about whether she'd
even
show up.
Performing
live in front of all of your peers as well as before millions on
network
TV requires enormous self-confidence, and Wy was still experimenting
with
performing on her own.
She
showed up. In the dressing room, Larry, Ashley and I dimmed the lights
and said a prayer over her.
Then
I reminded her of a time in the past when she'd taken a leap of faith.
She was probably 8 or 9, at the swimming pool in Kentucky. She'd worked
up the nerve to go off the high dive.
|
But
as she slowly ascended the ladder, her fear increased with each step.
By
the time she reached the top, her shoulders were up around her
ears.
I could
see she was ready to turn back. Yet when she turned around, the ladder
was now full of other swimmers.
The
only way out was to take that leap.
I smiled
reassuringly at her from the side of the pool. As always, I let her
know
I was waiting there to come to her rescue.
After
Wy took the plunge, she returned to do it over and over the rest of the
afternoon.
Recalling
a victory in the past helped her prepare for the one now in front of
her.
Wy performed beautifully at the awards show!
At
the same time, Ash risked rejection in Hollywood every time she
auditioned.
But she held on to her belief in herself, and her risks paid off. Never
give up!
Naomi
Judd
from
Country Music Television excerpt
from Chapter 11 :
"Risk
Allows You to Become Who You Were Meant to Be"
of
her book :
 -..-Naomi's
Breakthrough Guide :
20
Choices to Transform Your Life
photo
from naomijudd.com
|
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....
 |
Diane
Sawyer made her fantasy adventure come true by performing in Cirque du
Soleil's show, "O." After a day of training, Diane went live in front
of
a paying audience.
First,
Diane had to swim underwater dressed as a zebra. "Let me tell you, the
first big adventure was getting into the spandex and holding my stomach
in," jokes Diane. Then, after a costume change, Diane was lowered 108
ft.
in a harness as "The Bird of Peace."
Diane
said the experience taught her the limits of her fear. "The saying is
true,
'The stronger the wind, the stronger the tree.'" says Diane. "If you
just
get through it, you really do see the world in a new way the next day.
It's that simple."
from The Oprah Show / Amazing Adventures [site]
|
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|
The
attention you get from show business is very, very shallow, very
ephemeral.
It's the emptiest fuel for your soul. It can't sustain you, but it was
something I thought I needed when I was younger.
I didn't
have self-confidence. I was struggling to find out that being a woman -
being different from men, having different dreams then theirs - was a
good
thing. I needed to know I was worthwhile.
Elisabeth
Shue [Parade, November
23,
1997] [posted on elisabeth-shue.com]
|
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But,
[Dr. Christian] cautions, there is also pathological risk-taking.
"There
are people who play very casually with their lives.
"They
don't often wind up high in corporate structures, because they flame
out,
but you often find this in the arts, where there are people who could
achieve
much, much more but it's as if it's inimical to them, to let themselves
really succeed.
from interview
with Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D. -
psychologist
and author of book Your Own Worst Enemy:
Breaking
the Habit of Adult Underachievement [Amazon]
[Powells]
|
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 |
Women.com:
What words would you use to describe yourself?
Anne
Heche: Honest. Fearless. Ambitious. Part
of
my ambition is doing as many things as I can. I don't want to get stuck
in any rut.
Even
on the soap opera [Another World] I played twins. It doesn't work as
well
for becoming a movie star. But for creating a body of work and wanting
to explore all sides of myself, it's worked really well.
from
Women.com interview:
Anne Heche: Coming Into Her Own - by Nancy Mills
....Call
Me Crazy by Anne Heche [Amazon]
[Powells]
|
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The
most heroic of life's paths is that of the creative artist. There is
nothing
that fulfills the human experience more. ... There are two tragedies in
the artist's life as far as I'm concemed. Firstly. the artist doesn't
appreciate
how grand and
heroic
the path is.
He
or she takes the most difficult and gallant road on the planet, and
then
feels bad if it's not commercially successful. The second is how
artists
are treated in the world. It's not recognized that they are essentially
our spiritual leaders. They are providing what religion attempts to
provide.
Robert
Maurer, PhD...
- from article: The Vision Thing - by Karen Kondazian - from his site
|
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..
..
In
1913,
Daisy Bates, a middle-aged Irishwoman, went to live among the
aborigines
in the outback, where she devoted the rest of her days to trying to
preserve
their traditional way of life.
She
fed and doctored them, fought to keep out the railroad, and recorded
for
posterity their rituals and myths.
As
the central figure in Kaufman's fictionalized play, the fiercely
independent
Daisy (Lisa Pelikan) loves the aborigines' lack of materialism,
connection
to the earth, and detachment from the modern world's perception of time.
|
When
another real-life figure, Lutheran missionary Annie Lock (Suanne
Spoke),
wants to bring modernism to the tribes, the two fanatically idealistic
women are in conflict. ///
Daisy
Bates had a pretentious way of referring to the tribe she lived with as
"my people," and certainly she was arrogant.
"But,"
says Pelikan, "she had to have enormous self-confidence to have done
what
she did.
"She
was laughed at, condemned, yet she persevered. If we did not have her
records,
we wouldn't know about the aborigines of that time."
from
article Talk About Walkabout - Lisa Pelikan and Simon Levy take on
Lynne
Kaufman's Daisy in the Dreamtime - By Jeanne Schiffman, BackStage.com,
March 19, 2004
photo
of Lisa Pelikan as Daisy from The Fountain Theatre site
|
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My
Latin teacher [in junior high].. let me know that life could be sparkly
and fun and self invented... She just kicked our butts, and she brought
out the best of me and I adored her.
I try
to speak my mind. That's a dangerous thing to do in any world, and
certainly
in my world. And shey Latin teacher gave me the courage to do that. ...
People want to fire me on almost every job I have. They just don't like
directness or something.
writer
director Caroline Thompson[Snow
White (2001) (TV) ; Buddy (1997) etc] -
from interview
by Douglas Eby / photo from FilmForce interview
|
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| To
be entirely
honest, I am an extremely confident person, and I don't think I would
have
gotten into this business if I felt that I wasn't going to
succeed.
Erika
Christensen**[darkhorizons.com
Sep. 4.02]
|
 |
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~ ~
 |
Actress
Gillian Anderson explained part of how she has found her own creative
boldness:
"I have been so blessed to portray such a phenomenal woman as Dana
Scully.
"She
has taught me about strength and self-worth and personal power. In
early
episodes, when I was called upon to address large groups of male FBI
agents
with authority and self assurance, I felt so scared and weak that my
voice
would come out high-pitched and shaky.
"But
the more I 'acted as if' I was self-assured, the more I felt powerful.
And believe it or not, it can be that simple. 'Acting as if' is
sometimes
all it takes to empower oneself... the more I do this, the more people
listen to what I have to say and value my opinion."
from
column: Being bold by Douglas Eby
|
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..
..
"It
started
a long, long time ago in the shower," Renee
Zellweger says of her lack of
confidence
in her vocal abilities.
She
remembers singing along to Beatles records, especially to the Paul
McCartney
tunes, while her brother screamed "Shut up!" from outside the bathroom
door.
"So
I just had it in my head that I couldn't sing," says Zellweger, who is
shy to a fault and not at all cocky about any of her abilities or her
soft,
sexy beauty. ...
|
"I
never opened my mouth again. Then, in Empire Records.. I played a girl
who is not a very good singer and who is too scared to sing and who
hits
one good note -- and that was it. That was the first singing experience
that I had.
"And
then there was the drunken karaoke moment in Bridget Jones's Diary...
That
was a blast for me to do. And it was so bad. That's what my brother
heard
from the shower every day, in his mind."
So
she initially turned down the role of lethal pixie Roxie Hart in Chicago...
Catherine
Zeta-Jones says Zellweger's shyness and lack of confidence were
misplaced.
"Oh,
she was fantastic. She worked hard. We all worked really hard."
Zellweger,
says Zeta-Jones, soon emerged with the moxie for Roxie: "She flowered
within
days."
from
article: Zellweger jazzes up 'Chicago'
by
Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun, Dec 26, 2002
|
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~ ~
| Actors
are
some of the most driven, courageous people on the face of the earth.
...
actors are willing to give their entire lives to a moment -- to that
line,
that laugh, that gesture, or that interpretation that will stir the
audience's
soul. Actors are beings who have tasted life's nectar in that crystal
moment
when they poured out their creative spirit and touched another's
heart.
In
that instant,
they were as close to magic, God, and perfection as anyone could ever
be.
And in their own way, they know that to dedicate oneself to that moment
is worth a thousand lifetimes.
David
Ackert***[from
davidackert.com]
|
 |
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In my teaching, I know
that each
actor dictates their own curriculum because of their different needs
and
their level of commitment. ... a lot of students that say they want to
be actors aren't really courageous enough, so they wind up picking
teachers
that won't ask them the right questions or won't bring them to a
certain
level because of their own fears.
Jolene AdamsArtistic
Director, Actors Art
Theatre
quotes from book: The
Actor's Guide to Qualified Acting Coaches : Los Angeles
|
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~
~ ~
Anne Sexton, known
for her frank
confessional writing, was asked about why she dug so deeply into her
own
painful experiences:
There
was
a part of me that was horrified, but the gutsy part of me drove on. ...
Sometimes I felt like a reporter researching himself. Yes, it took a
certain
courage, but as a writer one has to take a chance on being a fool...
yes,
to be a fool, that perhaps requires the greatest courage.
|
Novelist Dorothy
Allison, whose
Bastard Out of Carolina was a finalist for the National Book Award,
also
talked about the courage it takes to write close to what makes the
writer
most afraid:
I
believe
the secret in writing is that fiction never exceeds the reach of the
writer's
courage. The best fiction comes from the place where the terror hides,
the edge of our worst stuff. I believe, absolutely, that if you do not
break out in that sweat of fear when you write, then you have not gone
far enough.
*book:**Jane
Piirto. My
Teeming Brain: Understanding
Creative Writers.
|
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~
~ ~
| Rollo
May.. a pioneering psychotherapist, philosopher, prolific and poetic
author,
and sought after teacher and lecturer, [was] also a gifted
watercolorist
with great appreciation for art and music.
Courage, as the
book's apt title
implies, is at the very heart of creativity, since to be creative
requires
us to risk seeing reality anew, and to try (typically not wholly
successfully)
to express our experiences in creative work, despite the anxiety such
soul-searching
and self-revealing endeavors inevitably engender.
Creativity always
requires taking
a chance on one's self-- meeting one's unconscious, or shadow, or what
May called the daimonic--and moving ahead despite self-doubts,
discouragement
and anxiety.
|
Courage, as May makes
clear,
is not the absence of insecurity, fear, anxiety or despair, but resides
in the decision to move through these feelings as constructively or
creatively
as possible.
from review of The
Courage to Create by Rollo May,
by Stephen Diamond, PhD,
author
of
Anger,
Madness,and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence,
Evil,
and Creativity
 *related
page:**the
shadow self
|
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| I'm
thinking about plunging ahead. ... I think you guard against decay, in
general, and stagnation, by moving, by continuing to move. And with
courage.
And courage is like -- it's a habitus, a habit, a virtue: you get it by
courageous acts. It's like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn
courage
by couraging.
from interview
with Mary Daly by Catherine Madsen
Mary Daly is author of
book Quintessence...
Realizing the Archaic Future
|
 |
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 |
Calista
Flockhart still has nightmares about her genital mutilation
fact-finding
visit to Kenya a year ago with human rights activists...
Flockhart
says, "I've always been very passionate about women's rights and the
reason
why I went is I had only a vague understanding of FGM [female genital
mutilation]
so I went to learn more about it. I felt deeply disturbed by it... I
met
this young girl called Beatrice who I just adored. I called her my
little
revolutionary. She stood up and said, 'No, I will not be cut,' and I
was
struck by her courage. She inspired me to stand up for myself and be
strong
and stand up for what I believe in my daily small, tiny little
battles." [imdb.com/PeopleNews/
Dec. 4, 2001]
|
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~ ~
Role Models will
be
for naught if there are no heroines from whom to learn about courage,
noble purpose, how to
reach
within and beyond ourselves to find greatness."
M.F.
Singer - from article Role Models
~ ~ ~ ~
| You have to learn
how to be
in scary areas, make those comfortable, then go to the next scary area
and make it comfortable. If we want to be in a little cocoon, well,
that's
where we're going to be.
But the nature of
moving out
of your little cocoon into another area is that it is scary, and it's
not
just a matter of saying you have to have courage, because you learn
courage.
Linda
Seger - from interview
|
 |
~ ~ ~
"I think growing up for anybody is
almost impossible... To grow in courage, to grow in patience,
to grow in grace, to grow in
understanding
and intelligence -- that is to grow up. So most people
don't do it, and it's very, very
hard
to do.... It's all scary and dangerous and unknown."
Maya Angelou
from
article On Fear by Douglas Eby
~
~ ~
"If you take your journey
as
a writer seriously, the end product is going to be much more than a
published
book,
poem, article, story, or a
lifetime
of personal journals. The path will take you beyond the surface of
everyday
life,
toward the inner space of
human
experience, where you cannot escape the awareness of creative sources
far greater than any single
one of us.
You will discover,
somewhere
in the infinitude of that seemingly-private universe, heavenly bodies
that
every
one of us sees if we have
the
courage to look. When we're at our most impactful as writers, those
bright
stars
of inner space shine
through,
inspiring awe and uplifting our hearts."
**from
book: *Hal
Zina
Bennett. Write
From the Heart: Unleashing the Power of Creativity
~
~ ~
| Pursuing
dreams requires bravery, discipline, patience and ingenuity, yet these
are qualities every one of us possess -- if we're willing to do the
hard
work dreams demand.
If
we're willing to honor our creative process instead of fighting it. ...
But
why bother with all this dream-pursuing, creative hoo-ha in the first
place?
Simply
because of the joy. If you can manage to leap off the cliff and trust
yourself
to fly, you will experience a fine, effortless joy like nothing
else.
You
will experience a larger connectedness with the Universe, and possibly
for the first time, see your place and your own unique value in it.
|
..
..
You
will
be doing what you were always, originally intended to do, and this is
the
secret of the whole process.
Suzanne
Falter-Barns
....from
book: * How
Much Joy Can You Stand :
A
Creative Guide to Facing Your Fears
and
Making Your Dreams Come True
more
publications, services on her site: HowMuchJoy.com
|
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~
~ ~
| Art
is an ongoing,
bold exploration. By painstakingly working the craft, students will
gain
courage to hurtle themselves through the void and thus learn to fly.
Sandra
Caruso, Professor, Department of Theater [quote from UCLA Today
online]
book: Sandra Caruso,
Susan Kosoff. Young
Actor's Book of Improvisation
|
 |
~
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~ ~
Dealing with
depression
and its causes may take tremendous strength and courage.
In her book "Remarkable
Women
- Perspectives on Female Talent Development" psychologist
Kathleen Noble writes about
the need for resilience "to overcome the constraints that have
thwarted the expression of
female
giftedness.
For gifted women who seek
to
overturn the psychosocial, religious, and historical forces that limit
all women's potential as
persons
and citizens, resilience is essential, however arduous its achievement
might be.
from article Depression
and Creativity by Douglas Eby
~
~ ~
 |
The
most
difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you
have to...
As
an
artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must
dare
to fail.
You
must
have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really
express it all.
John
Cassavetes [quoted
in Post Script vol. II, #2 by Raymond Carney]
related
book: John
Cassavetes: Lifeworks
|
~ ~ ~ ~
"Some who are called to
adventure
choose to go. Others may wrestle for
years with fearfulness and
denial
before they are able to transcend that fear.
We tend to deny our destiny
because of our insecurity, our dread of ostracism,
our anxiety, and our lack of
courage to risk what we have. Down deep we know
that to cooperate with fate
brings great personal power and responsibility.
If we engage our destiny,
we
are yielding to the design ofthe universe,
which is speaking through
the
design of our own person. In the face of refusal,
we continue our
restlessness,
and then, as if from nowhere, comes the guide:
something or someone to help
us toward the threshold ofadventure. This may
take the form of voices
within
or people who guide us to see the way."
book:
Joseph Jaworski. Synchronicity:
The Inner Path of Leadership
~
~
~ ~
| I
believe from the bottom of my heart that there is nothing we as human
beings,
and especially we as women cannot tackle. It is not a matter of being
fearless.
The fear is sometimes constant but it's about moving forward regardless
of the fear. Courage means feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
Gillian
Anderson -
from
foreword to book: Stacy Kravetz. Girl
Boss:
Running
the Show like the Big Chicks: Entrepreneurial Skills, Stories, and
Encouragement
for Modern Girls
|
 |
~
~
~ ~
| The
whole nutty enterprise [tv series "Scrubs"] is seen through the eyes of
J.D., who, played by Zach Braff, has a well-meaning but uncertain
attitude
he exhibits in numerous ways - by what he does, by his wry monologues
second-guessing
it, and by fantasy sequences that dramatize his interior conflict.
For
instance, his attempt to project confidence to the outside world is
seen
contradicted by his own self-image as a deer in the headlights.
"No
matter who you are," says Braff, "you can relate to how J.D. wants to
put
out something that's different from the way he's actually feeling. For
most people, there's a constant battle between who you want to be and
who
your insecurities are telling you you really are."
[from
Good for what ails you by Frazier Moore, Associated Press, LA Times Dec
26 2002]
photo: Dr. John
'J.D.' Dorian
[Zach Braff], far right & gadfly / tormenter Dr. Perry Cox [John C.
McGinley] >
|
 |
~
~
~ ~
*
articles:**
Being
bold - by Douglas Eby. "You
either had to be willful or risk losing touch with yourself." actor
Judy
Davis
Courage
and creativity -
by Douglas Eby
Courage,
as Rollo May makes clear, is not the absence of insecurity, fear,
anxiety
or despair, but resides in the decision to move through these feelings
as constructively or creatively as possible. ... In an article
about
Sandra Ford Walston, Jill Lawrence wrote: "Walston says the two things
in her life that required ultimate courage were the giving up of her
son
for adoption and embarking on a writing career.
The Courage to Take Action -
by
Brian Tracy
Perhaps the greatest challenge that you will ever face in life is the
conquest of fear and the development of the habit of courage. Winston
Churchill once wrote, “Courage is rightly considered the foremost of
virtues, for upon it, all others depend.” Fear is, and always has been
the greatest enemy of mankind. Fear, rather than the reality of what we
fear, is the cause of the associated anxiety, stress, and unhappiness.
When we develop the habit of courage and unshakable self-confidence, a
whole new world of possibilities opens up to us.
Fear
and creativity -
by Douglas Eby.
Fear can keep us from our creative
work and joy.
Fear [topic page]
"What
is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or
any
other resistance, is understanding fear; that means watch it, learn
about
it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not
how to escape from it." Krishnamurti
Taking
risks - by
Douglas Eby. One of the
major themes in material about increasing
creativity
is this one of risk-taking.
*books:
Joan Borysenko. Fire
in the Soul : A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism
"Psychological
courage entails a cleansing of the doors of perception, allowing us to
see things as they really are rather than through the distorted lens of
the past. The more we are cleansed of expectations, the more we see
what
is and the more we can respond to it creatively." Joan Borysenko
Nathaniel Branden, PhD. Honoring
the Self : The Psychology of Confidence and Respect
Don Greene Ph.D. Fight
Your Fear and Win: Seven Skills for Performing Your Best Under
Pressure
Ralph Keyes. The
Courage to Write : How Writers Transcend Fear
[reader:] "This book is
like
having a kind and sensitive therapist at the writing desk with you.
It's
clear, to the point and written in a relaxed, conversational style.
Keyes
defines the complex fears and anxieties that keep writers from facing
the
challenge of the blank page and offers insight into moving past fear
into
joyful written expression! I especially liked all the ancedotes he
includes
about authors like Hemingway, Faulkner, Proust and Fitzgerald. Anyone
who
agonizes over what he/she writes will appreciate this book."
Rollo May The
Courage to Create "Creativity
is the process of bringing something new into being...creativity
requires
passion and commitment. Out of the creative act is born symbols and
myths.
It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new
life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness and
ecstasy."
Rollo May
Thom Rutledge. Embracing
Fear: and Finding the Courage to Live Your Life
Stan Taubman. Ending
the Struggle Against Yourself : A Workbook for Developing Deep
Confidence
and Self-Acceptance
Betty A. Walker, Marilyn Mehr The
Courage to Achieve : Why America's Brightest Women Struggle to
Fulfill
Their Promise "A study of women, education, and achievement
reveals that academically gifted women frequently program themselves
for
underachievement and offers a positive strategy for fulfilling one's
potential."
~ ~ ~
....
more:**courage/confidence
: page 1.......courage/confidence
: page 2
*related
pages:.......self-esteem
/ self concept.......identity.......coaching.......fear.......anxiety
-**
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