By RICHARD ZWOLINSKI, LMHC, CASAC 
One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. Maya Angelou
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark Twain
Every day, ordinary people like you and me overcome extraordinary travails. Despite our fears, our hardships, our pain we keep embracing life. In fact, sometimes the most ordinary people are the bravest people in the world. Best-selling author ofThe Courage Companion, Nina Lesowitz talks what it means to face the world with courage.
Welcome, Nina. How do you define courage, bravery?
In our day-to-day lives, the virtue of courage doesn’t receive much attention. Courageous is an adjective usually applied to soldiers, firefighters, and activists. In fact, most of the people we interviewed claimed that they were not courageous! I think that’s because the image that comes to mind when you try to define the word courage is that of the firefighter rushing into the burning building.
I would call that bravery. And that mental image of someone climbing a mountain during a snowstorm with an impending avalanche? I would call that recklessness. I think there’s a huge gulf between recklessness and courage. Courage is having the ability to face down your fears and reclaim your inner power. Recklessness means taking unnecessary risks.
Can you tell us a little bit about why you became originally interested in writing about Courage?
In writing my new book, the Courage Companion, my co-author and I started thinking about larger-than-life heroes throughout history and ordinary people. Growing up we learned about men and women with tremendous courage – Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and also Fannie Lou Hamer who was 44 when she got involved in the civil rights movement helping African Americans to vote. She was beaten and jailed, yet she continued to speak, and raise money, and she helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
We thought about how much courage it takes to take a stand against oppression and try to change the status quo. But we also thought a lot about ordinary people, and wanted to try and find out how people battle all kinds of fears and tap into their inner power. So we interviewed people throughout the United States and Canada to try to define the characteristics of courage.
From those interviews, we selected a range of stories that we feel epitomize qualities of bravery and gutsiness. A common denominator in all of them is that these people took action in the face of their fears.
Also, personally, I got divorced when my children were young, and I was terrified of the future. I was able to get through it with the help of Sue Patton’s Thoele’s book, The Woman’s Book of Courage: Meditations for Empowerment and Peace of Mind.
Tell us about what have you discovered?
I discovered a few things:
I found out that when you avoid the thing you fear, your fears grow until they begin to control various aspects of your life. And as your fears increase, you miss out on the opportunity to live a full life. Like so many people, I often felt insecure even though I appeared confident. I realized that many of my life choices were governed by fear. For example, I write about my own experiences in the book – I was held back by the number one fear shared by many people around the world – the fear of public speaking.
Many years ago, I chose public relations as a profession because I thought I was more comfortable being behind the scenes. Whether organizing an event, a speaking engagement, or a media interview, I was always presenting someone else’s point of view. In fact, I give clients tips for how to put their best foot forward on camera, but I sidestepped the spotlight whenever it came anywhere near me. I was afraid to contract for a second book (my book that came out in 2009 – Living Life as a Thank You) because of my fear of public speaking. I knew I would have to talk about my book at bookstore signings and in media interviews and the thought terrified me!
Then the day came that I had no more excuses: I couldn’t put off my publisher with the usual maneuver about how busy I was – working full time, raising two children. My children were off at college, and my full time job had turned into a part time work-at-home gig. So I decided to join Toastmasters in October 2009 to help me overcome my fears. Toastmasters not only helped me succeed in doing live television interviews that fall, it also inspired this book!
I also discovered that we need to look at the factors that predispose us toward being afraid. As you know, the root source of fear is childhood conditioning. But there is a whole science around the fact that the human brain can develop new circuits even later on in life—and that’s called neuroplasticity, which refers to the ability of the human brain to change neural connections in response to new information and experiences.
So we can use techniques to change our self-perception and develop courageous states of mind. Positive thinking promotes positive outcomes, and pessimism begets negativity. So to generate a courageous attitude you have to train yourself to start thinking more positively in order to overcome those treacherous inner voices.
And finally, I discovered that people can survive and even thrive after crises: a question that has always been in the back of my mind. How do people continue to live after they’ve experienced some of the worst that life can throw at them? When faced with adversity, some people succumb to severe depression, while others are able to overcome losses with fortitude and resilience. The book is filled with those stories:
- Eli Rosmarin—who was 16 years old in September 1939 and living in Sosnowiec, Poland when the Germans invaded, is one of those “ordinary” people who show us through their example how deep our capacity to surmount evil can be. Currently residing in Pompano Beach, Florida with his wife of 55 years, Eli summons up his courage and remembers how he managed to survive the unthinkable.
- Alexis A. Moore, Founder & President of Survivors In Action who survived abuse and a terrifying campaign of cyberstalking.
- Romel Joseph, the blind Haitian violinist who captured worldwide attention after last year’s earthquake destroyed his music school in Port-au-Prince.”He was trapped inside for 17 hours. His wife actually died. She was trapped in the building as well, and she did not get out. He kept himself alive by singing the music he loves so much in his head, playing it over and over. When he got out, he was injured and went to a hospital. He’s back in Haiti, trying to rebuild his school.”
More with Nina, coming soon…
Nina Lesowitz, co-author of The Courage Companion, and two bestselling titles including Living Life as a Thank You, is also an award-winning marketing professional who runs Spinergy Group, which represents authors, corporate clients, and nonprofits. Nina lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters, and is on the executive committee of Litquake, San Francisco’s literary festival.
Richard Zwolinski, LMHC, CASAC is the author of
Therapy Revolution: Find Help, Get Better, and Move On Without Wasting Time or Money and is an internationally licensed psychotherapist and addiction specialist with over 25 years experience as well as a consultant to organizations and companies in the fields of mental health and addiction.
Learn more about Richard here.
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