“You can choose courage and you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."
Brene Brown

What is courage to you? Is it overcoming your own inhibitions? Is it doing something for the first time? Is it facing the difficult situation even when it’s horrifying? All those things for sure. But what about letting go of something you’ve been worrying about too long? What about cutting yourself some slack, when you beat yourself up for each and every mistake? It can always be considered courageous when you DO something. But sometimes NOT DOING something takes so much courage, that it seems almost impossible to overcome this challenge.

Meditation is a great example of a challenging art of not doing, speaking or thinking. When you start meditating there’s this perfect moment, when your mind achieves beautiful clarity. You’re so proud to be sitting there and finally doing nothing and benefiting from that. It takes less than one minute to set you straight and lead your mind back to the “worry track”. And when I say you, I mean myself.

“Why is this project not going as I have planned? What is she doing with this douchebag? How can I help them? Will he be OK with what I came up with yesterday? It’s so uncomfortable and my nose it’s itchy, noooo, I won’t scratch it! I'm meditating, I need to be calm. I liked this dress I saw a week ago, why didn’t I buy it? I want a waffle.” And this is just the first 30 seconds. To get rid of all these thoughts and bring the clarity back is a hard work. But it pays off.

Normally it is about 7 minutes for me and it usually seems like at least half an hour. I believe it’s easier for men, because they have these empty boxes in their brains, that they can use anytime and then think about nothing, literally. For a woman not thinking, talking or doing anything is a big excersize. 

The real victory is allowing the thoughts flow. Acknowledging, accepting and letting them go. Panta rhei, everything flows. That’s the way to do it. How? Courageously. One step at a time. And breathing involved.

They say (men, of course), that if you want to see the world championship, try to make a regular woman do and think nothing for 11 minutes. I tend to agree, unfortunately. But one day I’ll have my 11 minutes of full emptiness and clarity. Just wait for it.