Courage – by Renee Eaves
Are you courageous? Does it matter if you’re not? Courage is something held in such high regard by so many, yet it’s such a personal thing. No one knows how scared you were before you did it, so how can they measure how courageous you were? Courage might be saying yes to some things, as quickly as you can say no to others. In any case, just know this much from me, you don’t need to be taking on something gigantic to be courageous.
Maybe you’re depressed and you somehow managed to get out of bed this morning, anyone that has had depression knows the courage that takes! Maybe you ended a toxic relationship that you couldn’t find your way out of for years, that oozes courage for any of us. Speaking when you have been threatened into silence, and standing when you have been told to sit, that too is courage in all its various shades.
For me courage has been something that I have tried to practice when I’m at my most fearful. I remember entering into Bikini Pageants in my 20’s and feeling incredibly scared, then feeling guilty about my fear, because really, with all that was going on in the World, who gets scared about walking around a stage in a swimsuit being scored on the way you look?
The courage came not from having the confidence to parade around in a bikini in front of thousands, but to endure the full scale punch up with the bastard voices in my head that heckled me as I was walking out into the spotlight, saying your stomach is bloated, you need to lose 5 kilos, you’re not tall enough, not blonde enough, not pretty enough, and also look in the mirror for goodness sake, not tanned enough either. I recall coming home from winning this big pageant in the Bahamas where I’d essentially conquered the Mount Everest as far as the Bikini Pageant World goes, beating 65 other girls from around the World. Travelling home to Australia I was sick with a virus all the way, but still excited about my hard earned win. The first interview I did was with Tracey Grimshaw on the Today show. She said something like ‘you don’t strike me as being the usual stick thin model’ and then all I heard after those words was just muffled sound, the bastard Bahamas voice came over the top, it had followed me home sneaking through customs, and I was back in another fist fight with it. You’re not good enough I’m sure I heard it say, not deserving enough, and my god I think what she essentially said what that you were fat ?? My next interview as a result of that experience took for me, great courage, as I went in feeling an undeserving winner, and it knocked the wind right out of my sails. I wanted to stay small to avoid criticism, but it wasnt the criticism of others that cut so deeply, it was my own self critic that was the most harsh of all judges.
Fast forward 15 years and I’m standing in court for a week representing myself against the might of a Government in a large legal case against a policeman that had stalked and violated me. He had the great legal minds on his side funded by the endless public purse, and I just had well, myself. And of course that bastard voice, in it came all guns blazing again when I most needed it to get lost ‘you haven’t studied law, what do you think you’re doing’? You’re not smart enough, you’re going to look like an idiot when the whole room goes silent and waits for you to answer a question you don’t even understand, worse still, the room is going to erupt with laughter at your uneducated argument. This time it came in as strong as ever, and again I wrestled with it like a vicious crocodile that was trying to snap at my throat as I was speaking. I ended up against all odds winning that case. Mostly as a result of having the courage to fight that voice that has visited my mind many times throughout my life and tried to stop me from doing most of the things that I try to do. No one gets to see the biggest fights I have, because they are always with myself.
Courage is participating in the fight with the bastard voice and the consistent refusal for it to be louder than you. It’s your commitment to shutting it down each time it comes knocking. From bikini to bench, it’s followed me around and around like a little lost dog. If it is visiting you now or does anytime soon, master taking it for a long long walk, and letting it know it has no business trying to start a conversation with you either.
“Courage – It is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it” – Nelson Mandela
