Courage has been shown to ameliorate symptoms of low mental health, and can predict increased psychological wellbeing (Keller, 2016).

But what does courage mean to you?

The lion is usually a symbol of courage, although the lion in the photo looks more apologetic than courageous. I’m curious what he did (or perhaps didn’t do!) to elicit the lionness’ courageous response.

Perhaps one may think of courage as a valiant act of bravery, although Brene Brown (2008) states that courage once meant:

To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”… “the root of the word courage is cor – the Latin word for heart“… “Over time, this definition has changed”

– Brene Brown (2008) from I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to ” I Am Enough”.

Jennifer Armstrong and Lisa Dungate claim there are six types of courage people need to meet life’s challenges. The researchers acknowledge their Western-centric perspective and invite multicultural definitions to make the body of research more inclusive:

Check out heaps more of Lisa and Jennifer’s valuable work on The Lion’s Whiskers.

Small things matter. What may look like a small act of courage is courage nevertheless. The important thing is to be willing to take a step forward ~ Daisaku Ikeda

Being courageous means taking risks, which has manifest and latent consequences. We might even feel our lives are in real danger. As a result, we might feel it is safer to “stay schtum”.

But, we might also want to consider the impact that not being courageous could have on our wellbeing and the wellbeing of others?

Ruth Soukup offers 7 principles of courage:

Ruth also talks about the seven fear archetypes in her fab TedTalk:

If you are curious, you can take the Fear archetype quiz : )

Onwards and couragewards xXx

_{^{Keller, C. J. (2016). “Courage, Psychological Well-being, and Somatic Symptoms”. Clinical Psychology Dissertations. 17. https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/cpy_etd/17}}