Episode 6 - Fortitude

Fortitude is courage in pain or adversity 

In this episode I'm talking about fortitude because it is going to be one of the most important tools along your journey of healing, spiritual growth, transformation, goal setting. Really just living an expansive and aligned, healed and powerful life that lights you up and brings joy to your soul.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT BELOW: 
I want to talk to you guys about fortitude because it is going to be one of the most important tools along your journey of healing, spiritual growth, transformation, goal setting. Really just living an expansive and aligned, healed and powerful life that lights you up and brings joy to your soul. 

I want to call you guys up today. Beyond maybe your traditional paradigm of what it means to heal your life. Not simply for the sake of challenging you - But because I believe that many, if not most of you really think much lower of yourselves and your own abilities and what you are truly capable of.  And it’s easy to surround yourself with others who perpetuate this belief that you know basically you’re fragile and weak. 

And it couldn’t be further from the truth - if you’ve listened to my very first podcast episode about why i don’t like the term trauma-survivor - than you know I really view people who have experienced trauma, including myself as really strong and powerful and VERY VERY resilient. And some of you just stepping into that belief of yourself would change your whole perspective of yourself and in changing that perspective you would begin to powerfully shift and change your life. 

And so today this is the gift I want to give you - I want to give you the gift of understanding fortitude and carrying it forward into your life and your decision making and really your philosophy of yourself and who you are on a fundamental and deeeeeep deep level. 

I know who you are. You are powerful, and you have a purpose and you have meaning. And it’s likely that you have some sort of calling and nudging and intuitive knowing that your life is really meant for something. And I want to affirm that.  But I want you to get the download into your imprinting also. Because it’s not enough for me to believe it and understand it, you really have to get it and understand it as well. 

So let’s talk fortitude! Fortitude is Courage in pain or adversity. 

And of all the traits that you will carry with you throughout your journey on this earth - I really believe that fortitude stands above the top three - love is up there self-love and surrender I would say would be the top three in my books. 

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.

John Locke

So, fortitude is courage in pain or adversity. 

And this is very very simple in terms of a definition. It’s literally having the ability to stick with it through difficulty and pain and obstacles right. 

And when you are healing and transforming your life - you MUST MUST MUST - have the ability to stick with yourself and stick with your own truth and your own power through the obstacles that are going to come along the way. Okay - because they are going to come - they will come from within - all the internalized conditioning and imprinting on the brain and body, as well as come from without. But, i mean really the inner obstacles are the ones we really need to be concerned with because they are the MOST powerful of all. 

The domain of our own inner world - our spirit, our minds, our emotions, and our feelings this is a powerful domain and it requires so much courage to explore that inner-world and gain mastery of that and come back to the truth of who you are your core self and your essence in the midst of chaos and pain.

I think that’s why many of us fall into codependency and enmeshment dynamics because they are focused on mastering someone else’s life - someone else’s mood, someone else’s pain - rather than going into the inner domain and exploring and creating order out of the chaos of their own inner world 

I always say that trauma is a portal - and I say that because I believe it’s true - it is a portal to deep transcendence and spiritual awakening.  And so when you make the decision to heal your wounding - you are really opening up that portal into a life that you really never could have imagined or dreamed possible for yourself. But along the way you WILL encounter pain and you WILL encounter adversity that’s just the name of the game. 

Especially in the beginning stages of your journey of healing your life and de-programming yourself right?  Like the reason we get stuck in trauma re-enactment cycles and all our self-sabotaging behaviours is because we are looking to AVOID pain at all costs. Of course we know that avoiding pain just causes more pain in the end. ALWAYS causes more pain in the end. 

And I think a lot of us use pain as an excuse to quit on ourselves, to quit on our healing, to compromise on our boundaries, to give up on our dreams and what we truly want out of life. We sometimes even use our pain as an excuse to believe that healing is not possible for us. That we simply can never change - that we can never heal. That we’ll never become who we desire to become in our lives. We will never have what we deeply desire right. 

And of course it isn’t true. But those fears come from a lack of fortitude. They come from a lack of courage to stick with it through the pain and the adversity and do the work of transformation. The inner-work of deep and powerful change right. 

But when you are fortified, and you have fortitude you really have a mindset and an intention a spiritual intention that you are going to deploy your courage in times of pain and adversity RATHER than quitting on yourself. RATHER than going back to relationships which are not good for you, or compromising on your boundaries or using numbing and distracting behaviours.  RATHER than using the pain as an excuse to believe you’ll never heal or change right? 

What if in the times of pain and loneliness and despair and confusion - you allowed that pain to be there AND you didn’t quit - you just kept going. EVEN WITH the pain - EVEN WITH the fear EVEN with the doubt - this is fortitude. It’s not being perfect - it’s not you know getting to the goal right away - it’s not anything really that we think it is.

It’s the simplicity of sticking with yourself when times get rough. It’s the simplicity of having the courage to believe that your life can change and it is changing, and it will continue changing and acting from that belief and really having the discipline to act from that even when it doesn’t FEEL like it. 

Because it’s going to feel like it’s all your fault. It’s going to feel like you can’t make it. It’s going to feel like you can’t do it. It’s going to feel like your parents were right - like you ARE damaged - but it’s not the truth. And if you have the courage and fortitude to stick with yourself and act from that higher place of courage - then you will get through the pain - and the feeling and the belief will follow that. 

Because here is the thing - change is inherently difficult - and healing is the work of deep change on all levels - biological, spiritual, emotional.  It is a transformation and a de-conditioning process and the process of coming back into yourself - your core and your true self. And along the way you will be SO SO SO Tempted to quit on yourself and to compromise on your own healing. 

But I KNOW that’s not what you want - I know you don’t want to sabotage yourself, I know you don’t want to quit on yourself - but it’s in those times of pain and adversity that quitting on yourself seems like the only option for you.

But I’m here to tell you that it’s not. Fortitude is the alternative option.  It’s the harder choice in the moment. But it is the choice you want to make. 

I want you to have determination - I want you to have focus - laser focus on your healing. 

And here’s the thing having laser focus doesn’t mean that you won’t feel the shittiness of the past and the imprinting and the fear and despair.
It means you actually feel it and experience it and go through it with courage - knowing that it will NOT always be that way. Knowing that you are changing generational patterns - knowing that you are creating a powerful life for yourself. 

This is true power - this is true transformation - it is the internal fortitude.  Because you will always come up against stuff in your outer world. And so you will have to master the inner-world you will have to heal and do the work of transformation within and THAT is what gives you the ability to handle the stuff that life brings toward you and hurls at you right? And so when you’ve mastered yourself and your inner-world and you’ve been courageous and fortified enough to stand with yourself through it and see yourself through it - you really move to another level of resilience and power. 

Fortitude is a great help in distress.

Plautus