I get it, friend.

I know that feeling — caught between the desire to choose courage and the fear of what will happen when you actually do.

I know well the tension that exists within choosing between what feels right & what feels true.

It can be emotionally paralyzing & deeply dysregulating too.

I spent the first half of my life literally running from courage.

I had a penchant for running away from anything that broke my heart wide open — even the good stuff. And when everyday life got hard, I’d try to sweat it out with a run.

I was hiding and playing small.

Choosing comfort, conformity, and everything else I thought I should do, believe, think, love, communicate…

I chose to hide in my relationships, health, spirituality, habits, and career.

But mostly, I hid from myself.

I felt stuck, unconsciously spinning in place.

I regularly dissociated from my body and lived in the spin cycle of my mind.

The oxygen was slowly running out of all the closets I had put myself in too.

The only thing more frightening than choosing my comfort?

Practicing my courage.

Then family death, a career-ending spinal injury, a rare connective tissue disorder, living with chronic pain, and stepping out of a few closets changed everything.

There would be no more running now. I was invited to start all over again.

This second half of life has been all about softening into courage.

A rebirth — learning to literally walk again, to accept & to regulate my emotions, and to breathe freely as the femme I am.

Authenticity is messy; it usually begins with loss & grief, the shedding of all that no longer aligns to the deepest truth of who we are.

For me, that meant more loss of family & meaningful relationships, including my closest friendships and favorite workplace community. It also meant a medical bankruptcy, financial ruin, an eviction notice, a C-PTSD diagnosis, and homelessness in less than a year.

The destruction of my external security and an opportunity to learn how to create inner safety and trust. An annihilation of all that I knew so I could become who I am meant to be.

Rock bottoms & unrelenting transitions illuminate everything.

From within these trenches, The Courage Practice was born.

No home address, $808 to my name stashed in an old tea tin in my luggage, zero financial support, and delivering coaching sessions in my car while borrowing free wifi from coffee shop parking lots across three states in the Pacific Northwest. I secured the contracts for my first handful of annual retainer clients by phone from the backseat of my Volkswagen Jetta.

It took another three years of housesitting, petsitting, couch & floor surfing, one glorious spare room, the kindness of strangers turned family, the softening of my inner resistance, and massive growth & healing to reunite with my dog, my city, and a home of my own.

Courage remains my practice today.

All of us have a story that would break our hearts wide open, don’t we?

And yet there is genuine power in reclaiming what we desire to create & contribute — even & especially when we’re on our knees.

Imagine what the world could be if we all allowed our fear yet chose our courage?