This past weekend my wife and I went on a getaway to a hotel on a lake in northern Minnesota.
The purpose of the trip was two-fold. First, we were going to review the past year and then set some personal and couple goals for 2019. This was a first for us as we’ve never done this before and I must admit that it was a bit scary. The second reason we went was to do some cross-country skiing and/or snowshoeing.
I’ve cross-country skied maybe a half dozen times in my life and I’ve not enjoyed it all that much. When you’re six foot seven it’s a long fall when things don’t go right. Snowshoeing is a lot easier to pick up so I was hoping that would be our chosen form of recreation for the weekend.
We arrived well after dark on Friday night so we simply settled in our room, went to the pool, and then to bed. On Saturday, the plan was to choose our recreation and then have our goal conversation in the afternoon for as long as needed.
When I got up on Saturday I headed out to the car to get something I’d forgotten the night before. Everything was covered in a sheet of ice. As I laboriously shuffled to the car I could feel a very light mist on my face and bald head. Looks like our recreation plans were scrapped at least until later in the day. It never did get better.
We spent a few hours on our goals and then had plenty of time for other things. However, with the roads and sidewalks not being very good we were limited in our options.
Without too much discussion we quickly settled on binge watching our current favorite Netflix show, Heartland. It’s a show based on a mulit-generational family horse ranch in Canada. It’s pretty wholesome stuff overall.
I’m not sure how many episodes we watched but it became apparent very quickly that fear and courage were main themes in every episode. With multiple mini plots in each show some of these showed up in the same episode. Here are just a few of the examples of the plot lines that involved fear or courage:
Courage to take responsibility for your actions
Courage to tell the truth
Courage to have a difficult conversation
Courage to go to the doctor
Courage to hold someone accountable
Courage to stand up for yourself or someone else
Courage to face addiction
Courage to ask for help
Courage to trust
Courage to admit your mistakes
Any of those sound familiar to you?
Of course, I could have written each of these from the other side of the coin, fear. Wherever you have someone in need of courage, fear is more than just a shadow.
So, how does fear show up in the characters in this show? Not surprisingly, it shows up in the ways it shows up in our lives:
Avoidance
Blame
Procrastination
Perfection
Settling
Compromising
Rationalizing
Any of those sound familiar to you?
Where do you need to show courage today and how has fear shown up in your life to keep you from doing what you need to do?
Have a STRONG and COURAGEOUS day!
Do you need a speaker for an upcoming event? I’d love to be that guy. You can reach me at dave@cultivatecourage.com or 952-200-7499.
You can now buy the book “Cultivate Courage” on Amazon! https://amzn.to/2N2PBVJ
