Courage by Alli Vainshtein

I have decided. I am a courageous woman. This is how I define myself. This is who I am. This is how I live my life.

I used to think courage was the life of a martyr. It was living for everyone that wasn't me. It was a way of avoiding myself, disassociating from my own pain, in the name of self-sacrifice. I wasn't genuine. I didn't know my own heart. Every day I moved farther from my soul. I did bold and crazy things without fear. I picked up every hitchhiker I saw by the side of the road. I helped homeless people find themselves, find jobs, and make a new life for themselves. I helped to open homeless shelters and battered women's shelters. I felt proud of myself for doing things to help others. I burned the candle at both ends suddenly, there was nothing left but ashes.

I crashed and burned. Like a phoenix, I remade myself, I was reborn, I recreated my world, my reality and made a new life. This was my fearless life.

As I get older, I am learning that it takes more courage to look within, get to know myself, listen to my intuition, deal with my own fears and my own problems, rather than the problems of others. I no longer avoid myself. I derive my courage from my own heart, my own believes, visions, and dreams. I have found a greater courage in visualizing the solution to the problem, and bringing it to life. I guess as I get older, I have learned to conserve energy, work smarter, and connect with the energy of the universe in a new way.

Have the courage to be yourself. It is so much fun.

Alli Vainshtein is a flexibly stubborn intellectual dreamer, aspiring to be a midwife of creativity.