courage / confidence : page 1.....
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courage / confidence : page 1.....
 Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton - from her Commencement Address at CUNY Honors
Graduation May 31, 2005When you made the decision to enroll in this new idea [the Honors College and University Scholars], you were audacious, and you were subversive. You took a big chance; I know something about taking chances and you can never predict what will happen when you take these chances. I took and chance and the people of New York took a chance on me when I ran for the Senate. But life is filled with opportunities taken, differed, or regretted. You took the road not only less taken, it had never been taken. And it was your class that has truly created this Honors College. For all the work the faculty, and the administration, the supporters who hoped it would be a success, none of them bore any of the responsibility that you did. /// |
A woman who may have come from privilege but had very little support in the family in which she was born. Who in a very American way invented herself. She once said: "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the things which you think you cannot do." > photo at left: late 1960s, early 1970s; at right: from her book Living History > biography: Hillary's Choice - by Gail Sheehy |
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Unexplored places do not frighten them - or not, at any rate, as much as they frighten those around them. This is one of the secrets of their power. That which we call "genius" has a great deal to do with courage and daring, a great deal to do with nerve.
therapist, writer Nathaniel Branden
> image from Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto - see page: solitude
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 Maria Shriver to
high school grads off to collegeYou'll need a lot of courage. As you step out into the next phase of your life, you're going to need courage -- to face your fears, to try new things, and handle the bumps life puts in your path. Courage is having faith that you're going to be okay, even though you're scared. There's nothing wrong with being scared. After all, it's taking courage just to leave home and strike out on your own. And let's get real here. You will be challenged, and that's good. When you're struggling is exactly when you learn you have all the courage and strength you need to get through. |
You'll know you're strong and courageous and true to yourself -- and that's real happiness. Maria Shriver - from her book And One More Thing Before You Go... -- expanded from her speech given to a young friend's high school graduating class; Shriver has four children, including two teen daughters > image at right from book:*Women*by Annie Leibovitz, |
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Lots of experimental writing is linked to intellectualism, which can be very alienating, very anti-body and anti-emotion.
It seems to me this is the defining difference between straight experimental fiction and queer experimental fiction.
The queers who do weird stuff with words very much engage the body and emotion, and they like to push their material into places that don't feel safe.
For my writing to work, I need to go into areas where I don't feel safe. ///
We use words to organize the world, and the world is a very scary place. I think people are afraid that if they enter into a space where words don't behave themselves, that they'll be plunged into chaos.
And in a sense, they're right. I'm all for mucking up cultural categories and pulling the ground out from under the reader.
Dodie Bellamy
suspectthoughts.com / Brian Pera interview
> book : Pink Steam - by Dodie Bellamy
> related pages : fear....writing
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Isabella Rossellini identifies with auteurs such as her father, director Roberto Rossellini, who have "brains that can go far out to what is the limit of their fantasy, regardless of whether they have a public, an audience, or success ... "They'd rather be in rags and poverty but do what is in their mind. Very willful. I just find that charming."
> cnn.com December 13, 2004
> photo : as Thar, the High Priestess of Atuan, in the Sci Fi Channel series "Legend of Earthsea"
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Ingrid Bergman is particularly eager to defend the quasi-improvised Italian films she made during the years of her marriage to Roberto Rossellini. "Those movies were ahead of their time -- everything that Antonioni came along with later is in them.
"It gave me an enormous amount of strength and courage to be in those movies, because working under conditions like that was so difficult. The dialogue was written just before the cameras turned."
> from article : The Constant Stardom of Ingrid Bergman - By Richard Dyer, New York Times, 1975
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History allows us to honor the memories of recognized courageous figures, such as Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney and Katherine Graham.
..
..Today, the power lies in the noble and courageous voice of the everyday person, the ordinary working person, the mere citizen.
Even though our culture does not pay tribute to those who have never been national or even local celebrities, and though the workplace does not take the time to celebrate your daily courage, as you quietly go about your day-to-day life, realize that you make a difference. What is your definition of courage? Do you know the origin of the word?
Courage is neither Greek nor Latin; it's Medieval Old French corage, meaning "heart and spirit" or cuer, meaning "heart."
Courage is a forgotten virtue, because people do not recognize their everyday actions as significant.
> from article Courage is Caged in the Workplace - by Sandra Ford Walston, Chief Learning Officer magazine September 2004
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"The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul." Simone Weil
> related book : The Notebooks of Simone Weil
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Sometimes we balk at an enterprise because we're afraid of being alone... it makes us nervous going off into the woods alone. Here's the trick: we are never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly. The act of courage calls forth infallibly that deeper part of ourselves that supports and sustains us.
Steven Pressfield - book: The War of Art
> quoted by Barbara Winter in her newsletter -
see BarbaraWinter.com - Travel Gear for the Joyfully Jobless Life> painting: "Into the Tangled Wood" by Anne Sudworth -
related book: Enchanted World by Anne Sudworth
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 .. .. Those fears come in two basic forms: fear of the unknown and fear of conflict - which is enormous because, back in ancient times, getting cast out of the tribe meant certain death. We human beings still suffer from that hardwiring, even though today, staying with the tribe means following a crowd off a cliff. The fact is, right now a group of people somewhere in the world is causing massive destruction, and most of us just try not to think about where we're headed. I've been scared to death twice in my life... Both times were when I thought I was letting people down and that I would be hated - in other words, cast out. /// |
Fear
is just an energy - an energy we can use to our advantage or be cowed
by.
We can all reprogram our brain's responses by putting ourselves into new, initially uncomfortable situations. We'll learn fear might not mean "stop"; personally, I've come to believe fear usually means "go." It always means listen closely. Today a lot of people assume they're fearful because of terrorism or the shaky economy. But I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are. Because when you get right down to it, even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully. Frances Moore Lappe from
her article
What Are You Afraid Of? photo from her site : Small Planet Institute You
Have the Power: Choosing
Courage in a Culture of Fear |
~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. If you think she's exaggerating, go see her daring portrayal of Caroline, a long-suffering maid living down South in the 1960s. Pinkins, who won a Tony in 1992 for her turn in "Jelly's Last Jam," does the unthinkable, at least in the world of musical theater: She doesn't try to be liked. "This character could not be sweet or likable or funny," she says. "She's raw." |
As
nervy as her performance is, it doesn't compare to Pinkins's boldness
outside
the theater.
A mother of four, she returned to school at 34 and received her degree from Columbia College Chicago in two semesters. She also represented herself in a custody battle with her first husband and fought -- successfully -- to have the judge removed because of his bias against women. Pinkins could teach a class on gutsiness, and in fact, she does. For the past year, she has run a workshop called the Actorpreneur Attitude Transformational that helps performers learn what she calls, "the psychology of success and how to let go of insecurity." She says the biggest problem actors have is that they don't know how to receive. "But if you can't take a compliment," she asks, "how are you going to [accept] an Oscar®?" from "O" The Oprah Magazine's First Annual Chutzpah Awards: May 2004 - posted on tonyapinkins.com |
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 .. .. I'm not talking about your girth, I'm talking about your mirth. I'm talking about your passion and depth of feeling. Or are you stuck in conditioned responses, such as "uncertainty scares me" or "I'm too old to learn something new?" Are these the labels you've fastened on your life's journey? If so, this is the opposite of courage. |
Many
of my readers, corporate/association clients, or coaching clients tell
me that I have given them "permission to be themselves."
I have helped them to see that their courageous self, the one who feels deeply and hides it for fear of being judged or compared, is really okay. From that "real self" perspective, new insights about their inner passion and hidden wishes comes forth. This newfound courage and sense of freedom merges body, mind and spirit. Sandra
Ford Walston -
|
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 .. .. In 1917, along with Paul and numerous other suffragists, she was sentenced to the Occoquan Workhouse for picketing the White House. Burns embarked on a 19-day hunger strike in November 1917; like Paul, she was force-fed. ... The women's resistance to being force-fed earned them the nickname "The Iron Jawed Angels." However, it is truly their wills that are made of iron, and their courage inspires a nation and changes it forever. |
 .. .. And I think for a lot of us - and probably myself included - well, you know, you back off. It just seems insurmountable. But these women just kept going. And they suffered incredibly because of it. And that makes an amazing story." Frances O'Conner about portaying Lucy Burns in "Iron Jawed Angels" quotes, photos from HBO site |
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Several researchers have found that a lack of confidence in girls seems to increase with females who are more intelligent, and this pattern may continue into mid-life. The roots of the problem are deep and complex. ... In addition to having less confidence in their own abilities, the talented girls I studied were overly critical of themselves and listened more to advice given by others, took it more to heart, and often followed it.
Psychologist Tomi-Ann Roberts.. has found that women tend to look to others for evidence of their own competence more than men do and are more sensitive to the evaluations they receive from others.
from book: Work Left Undone: Choices and Compromises
of Talented Women by Sally M. Reis, PhD
..
Winona Ryder as Jo
in film Little Women~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. In a panic, I tried to think of the last time I'd known what I wanted and had actually spoken about it. I couldn't. It was unbelievable - I'd lost my voice. If you'd known me growing up, I'd be the last person in the world you'd think would lose her voice. I was a tomboy, climbing trees and always forgetting to brush my hair. I was also a vocal feminist: By sixth grade I was already outraged at the way women were exploited as sex symbols in the media. I'd advocated environmentalism and promoted vegetarianism... Now I couldn't decide how I wanted to eat my eggs. What had changed me? One word: boys. |
 .. .. Julie Andrews was a huge influence on me... She taught me you can be self-confident without being arrogant. ... For the first time, I felt free to be myself. The Princess Diaries [dvd] showed me I could have a voice, and that it has the potential to be a beautiful one. Anne Hathaway from
her article "I was lousy at being myself" - photo
at left from "Ella Enchanted" (2004) |
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 .. .. Others become at-risk physically or emotionally, slipping into depression or eating disorders. Still others experience a slide in self-confidence that lowers their achievement and scatters their dreams .... |
During their five-year Laurel School study of 100
girls between the ages of seven and eighteen, Carol Gilligan and Lyn
Mikel Brown observed that.. "Self-esteem collapses under the stress of
the struggle." ...
Despite talking about themselves as being more mature and despite getting good grades, the middle-school girls reported feeling depressed or numb and seemed at times unable to know and name their feelings and thoughts clearly. The single most significant finding of the Laurel School study, according to Lyn Brown, was that "Girls can look good in school, do extremely well, and get high grades, while actually feeling bad. They are great masters at hiding their suffering." from [free
online book]: Power
and Promise : Helping
|
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 .. .. The courageous acts of women like Joan of Arc... seem extraordinary. Every culture subtly teaches women to make choices consistent with the norms of the day, and most contemporary cultures extol silence and passivity as feminine virtues. ... Challenging the long-held myths of the past is the first step to shifting cultural norms. |
 .. .. By doing that, we can courageously reclaim the female creative power. Sandra Ford Walston
Sandra Ford Walston site photo
: Milla Jovovich as Joan in The Messenger: |
*related article:....Courage and creativity by Douglas Eby~ ~ ~ ~
|
It takes
courage to push yourself to places that you have never
And the
day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud
|
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more:**courage/confidence : page 2.......courage/confidence : page 3
*related pages:.......self-esteem / self concept.......identity.......coaching.......fear.......anxiety
-****home page :: Talent Development Resources*--**site contents******books etc---sections :---Women & Talent -----Teen/Young Adult talent
One
of my great personal heroines was Eleanor Roosevelt. The more I know
about her, the more I admire her. 
And
when you come out on the other side, you'll have faced your fears,
you'll have struggled and won, and you'll feel great. 
-..-