Courage for the Journey

Book excerpt: COURAGE FOR THE JOURNEY assembles a collection of wisdom to ignite courage, hope, and strength in those caught in the inevitable storms of life. In his 1965 masterpiece I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, Dr. Seuss observed, And I learned there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. Adversities arise in all shapes and sizes. The death of a loved one, divorce, business failure, job loss, health issues, and natural disasters are only but a few examples. None of us is immune from the life events that can shake or even obliterate our foundations. Personal disasters leave us dazed and shell-shocked. We find ourselves standing in the rubble of our lives, wondering how to move forward and what to do next. Winston Churchill asserted, If you are going through Hell, keep going! This is sage advice for anyone in distress. The question is how, when you have totally lost direction, do you keep going? When fear, discouragement, failure, loss, and regret have taken firm root in the gardens of our heart, mind, and soul, how do you vanquish them? During adversity, attitude will always dictate outcome. The key to overcoming any obstacle is to tune out the negative noise of the storm and society in general. The positive emotions of courage, faith, hope, perseverance, and peace contain far greater power than negative emotions. COURAGE FOR THE JOURNEY explores strategies for: Finding courage and faith in place of fear Finding hope and perseverance in place of discouragement Finding opportunity and choice in place of failure Finding clarity and accepting change in place of loss Finding recovery, reinvention, and peace in place of regret