Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willful engagement of fear, and the choice you make to proceed in the presence of the fear. Focus on being Okay -- regardless of the lover leaving you, or the bank foreclosing, or the blood test coming back positive...
There is a thin line between "being okay" and pessimism - expecting the worst, drawing it to you, and creating self-fulfilling negative prophecies.
Remember that whatever you choose to believe, you will eventually be right. Pessimism allows you to be right about everything going wrong.
The only way out is to go in. When you focus on being Okay, no matter what happens, you are creating an affirmation that external circumstances do not determine or control your inner peace and strength. You are not defined by the shit you find yourself smack in the middle of -- you are always You, self-defined, and assisted in expressing who you are by any challenge that comes your way.
Maybe you can't see that - you think "I'll just die if the Thing I fear comes to pass…"
Your life can be made better even by the things that break your heart. Find the Faith to tell yourself that even if I don't know right now How I will ever survive, or Why this is happening to me, I will find out by experiencing it and coming out the other side of it.
Where you stumble, there your treasure lies. I will find a way to be Okay with whatever. I will find a way to use it. You hold your head up and you walk bravely to meet it, with your eyes open for what it will teach you, for the treasures that will be only found inside the experience.
Are you a re-run TV star, or a torch song diva? Instead of playing the Victim, opposite Meredith Baxter Birney in your based-on-a-true-story television movie event, and going for that Emmy-nomination, become the diva who sings "Oh, no, not I. I will survive. Oh, as long as I know how to love I know I'll stay alive…"
Nothing but a victim. If you allow yourself to be dragged through weeping and wailing and resisting, then you will arrive at the other side dead or at best wounded again, with nothing to show for it but tears and complaints. No power collected…
What it means to be brave Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the willful engagement of fear, and the choice you make to proceed in the presence of the fear. Brave people -- everyday heroes you can name -- all act -- do their thing -- in the presence of fear. They do not annihilate the fear or extinguish it prior to the experience -- without it, there is no call to be brave; courage never comes.
Seek Wisdom -- Practice Love