If you saw this little turtle on social yesterday, here’s a little of what it taught me about courage.
I came across this little guy on a walk, neck stretched out and face turned toward the sun, resting on a log among the fallen leaves.
Here’s what I love about turtles. They have a shell for a reason. When something feels threatening, in it goes, and that is not weakness. That’s biology working correctly. But there’s an old saying that a turtle only makes progress when it sticks its neck out.
Courage works the same way. Here’s something that might change how you think about being brave: courage doesn’t happen in a calm nervous system. It happens in an activated one, that you choose to move through anyway.
This is what we practice in our Radiant Return Collective live yoga classes every week. We stir up intensity in the body, then see how steady and comfortable we can be inside it.
When something scares you, your body does exactly what it’s designed to do. Heart rate climbs, breath shortens, attention narrows to the threat. The question was never how to make that response go away. It’s what you do while it’s happening.
This is where Pause comes in. Not pause until the fear passes. Pause long enough to Feel what’s actually happening in your body without being run by it, and Respond from something steadier than the alarm. That’s the whole practice. Think of it as the moment the turtle’s neck begins to extend: slowly, one inch at a time, when it’s steady enough to.
Try this: the next time you feel that familiar tightening before something that scares you a little, don’t wait for it to pass. Take one slow breath inside it, stretch your neck out just an inch, and do the thing anyway. Slow is fine. Slow still counts.
We’re nearly two weeks into the Radiant Return 30-Day Challenge: Disrupt the Default, and this is exactly what we’re practicing daily: noticing the activation, and choosing to move through it instead of around it. There’s still room if you’d like to join us.
Radiant Return 30-Day Challenge: Disrupt the Default. $27, open to everyone. Sign Up Here.
In Radiance,
Catherine