How To Be Brave

I'm a brave guy, or so I've been told, so I thought I'd write an article about how to be brave.

My situation may be different from yours in that I think I've been brave for most of my life, or at least as long as I can remember. Someone who is searching “how to be brave” on the search engines is likely to feel lacking in bravery but wanting to know how to change that.

I'm not sure I am as much of an expert as someone who wasn't brave but later became brave, but at least I'll be able to give you some ideas from my own point of view.

Bravery is very relative anyway because different people will find it harder or easier to be brave in different situations. For one person talking to a stranger in the street is a heroic act of bravery, for other it requires no bravery at all.

In general bravery can be defined as the ability to act free of the constraints of fear. It might also be defined as the ability to act free of the constraints of fear *while feeling fear anyway*, which is a slightly different thing.

One of the important ways of becoming brave is to balance your body-mind so that you don't feel excess fear in the first place. Another would be to learn to turn to face fear and not be controlled by it when you are feeling it. I'll explore both of these things in following.

How To Be Fearless

Firstly, you can be brave by being actually fearless. You can do this through many personal development techniques, methods and paths, as well as spiritual development (including meditation). You can also learn to not feel fear by facing your fear enough that it disappears.

As the spiritual teacher Gangaji said, fear is like a shadow that grows bigger when you avoid it but disappears when you look straight at it. So in some ways, turning to face your fear and learning not to be controlled by it is a path which will lead you to not need to face your fear so much in future anyway.

You can heal fear with psychological techniques such as EFT and NLP, as well as almost any personal development technique that cleanses the body-mind. NLP in particular is great for phobias.

Spiritual development will also cleanse you of fears. The more you realise and live your true nature as Spirit, the less you'll feel controlled by fear. When you realise that you are not the body and that nothing really matters *that* much, you have no fear in your heart. You still may have the sort of fear that helps you run away from a tiger or whatever – healthy fear – but what I'll call “existential” fear just disappears. Often, whatever healthy fears we may have are blown out of proportion by an additional layer of existential fear. By facing those fears and growing spiritually, you'll grow to only feel the healthy fear.

Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway

And what about to “feel the fear and do it anyway”? I think this is an important step for someone who is learning how to be brave.

Steve Pavlina, a personal growth blogger, talks about running towards that which he is afraid of rather than running away. I am not sure if I share the same drive, but I will definitely rebel against fear constraining me from doing what I want.

If you feel a fear, don't look away from it. Understand that anything that cannot be identified as a natural fear, or any natural fear that is overwhelming and out of proportion, is an existential fear and is a part of your energy that needs to be recovered.

Your life itself is about becoming more in tune with your spiritual nature, so facing existential fears and learning that you are not that which is vulnerable is an incredibly important task.

When you feel a fear, stop and breathe. Try to get into the present moment; focus on your breath or use some other meditation technique to do so. (If you need an introduction to spiritual growth, check out my article on my favourite spiritual author: Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle).

Breathe “into” the fear. That is, move your consciousness into the fear rather than away from it. This should help to dissolve it.

Realise that the fear isn't real, and make your decision about what to do while detached from the fear.

How To Be Brave

What I do to be brave when I know what I want to do is I bring out my sense of spiritual power and demand the situation change.

This is difficult to explain as I think I'm a little unique in the sense of internal power I feel. People call me “intense” and usually can't hold my gaze. But I think other people can develop or discover this trait in themselves with some extra work.

The power, if I could describe it, seems to be coming up out of the Earth. It's connected with my strong sense of will. I draw this power up and with it – or expressing it – I demand that the Universe or the situation change. I have this feeling that what I say will inevitably come true sooner or later. Perhaps you can find and feel this sense of inevitable power, too.

With this power I plow through all obstacles in my life like a rampaging monster truck. Whatever existential fear I still have has no chance.

This is my personal secret to being brave. It's something I discovered in myself and to some extent just a gift, but I am sure all people have at least some of this stuff in them and can awaken it when they try.

Good luck.

Andrew Gubb's Blog - Indigo Children and Adults, Conscious Living and Saving The World