Ever Thought of Traveling to Build Courage?

·         By: Sally DeMasi

·         Thu, 12/11/2014 - 01:15· posted on SelfhelpMagazine

Do you feel you have the courage you need in life?  Just what is courage anyway and why might you want to engage it in all aspects of your life? To develop courage will require facing your fears.

Courage is mental and emotional preparedness to deal with difficult situations as a person confronts pain, fear, intimidation or physical and moral danger. Courageous individuals are often independent, display selflessness with integrity and honor.  A courageous person also exhibits virtue, honor and bravery.

Do you feel you have the courage you need in life?  Just what is courage anyway and why might you want to engage it in all aspects of your life? To develop courage will require facing your fears.

Courage is mental and emotional preparedness to deal with difficult situations as a person confronts pain, fear, intimidation or physical and moral danger. Courageous individuals are often independent, display selflessness with integrity and honor.  A courageous person also exhibits virtue, honor and bravery.

As you acquire courage you become self-confident.

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About the AuthoR

Sally DeMasi, author of “Courage Quest”

Available on major book sites – links and other stories on: http://www.couragaequest.net. Also a photographer, enjoy her photos on: http://www.sallydemasi.com. She lives in the Idaho mountains and takes advantage of winter sports, then kayaks, fishes, hikes and camps summers.  

She wrote “Courage Quest “, which encompasses her growth through backpacking solo international trips, encouraging others to uncover the treasure courage allows.

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Book

Courage Quest is a compilation of adventure stories in various parts of the world where I confronted my fears in search of courage--starting a bit late when I was turning fifty. I traveled almost exclusively by myself with a backpack by public transportation or walking, staying as locals do in hostels while turning my back on millions from my career to concentrate on the search for me.

Learn how I survived my guides washing dish technique in the Amazon, my encounter with a shaman who cured a rusty rebar cut in the jungle from infection and my solo walk through a drug and crime infested Athens neighborhood.

Come share my ventures, the lessons learned, why and how we should pursue and create new adventures in your life. You’ll improve your self-confidence as an older woman struggling to survive mature years, as a young woman completing your rite to passage journey to womanhood learning to define yourself and maturing or as a man who just wants a bit more guts in his life as he ventures forth.

The gift of courage added a new dimension to my life as I uncover who I really was and what was needed to make my life full.

You can follow my footsteps camping on safari in Africa, paddling down the Amazon, rafting the wild rivers of Idaho where I  found all I had searched for.

  Courage is not necessary to live a mundane life, but it is necessary to live

                                                         a full one that you can be proud of.

 

 Courage Quest

Is now available for purchase as an e-Book:
Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Google Play, iTunes - iBookstore, Kobo, Goodreads

 “This book may just change your life path as you learn to confront your fears through courage”

Braveness
The Bravest Thing I've Ever Done

by Sally DeMasi

Braveness comes in many forms. It can be a bold defiant act confronting fear which produces courage as I have done over the last years on my world solo adventure travels. I’ve paddled down the Amazon and the rapids of Idaho, faced wild animals in Africa and walked the drug infested streets of Third World Countries. But, I think what I am proudest of, was an act that to others may seem insignificant.

It was how I choose to say goodbye to my aging dog – straight on, not allowing someone else do the hard stuff.

Tasha was my companion for thirteen years. She had been though the best and the worst times of that period of my life. A rescue dog, I choose this 3 month old Lab/Rottweiler/and who knows what other lineage, because of her story and her actions. Her mom was homeless and wandered the streets pregnant with 12 pups, giving birth when a kind woman realized her plight and made a comfortable birth nest for her.

I stared at the box of puppies, she was the only one with straight hair and harassing her sleeping brothers and sisters poised on top as she nipped each in hopes they would romp with her

.

I fell in love at that moment with an alpha puppy who curled up on my lap as we drove home – never expecting to have adopted one that day and no provisions to welcome her home.

She had a definite effect on my life from the start. I did crazy things like deciding to work less managing a part-time schedule – just to stay home with my doggie. I declined social engagements just to hurry home to be with her after leaving the pup for my work day. I rejected my fanatical technical reading required to “get ahead” in my position. I even stopped all my shopping expeditions that at one time seemed so important, to be with my Tasha. I had found a level plane ignored in the past.

Instead, I delved into insane pursuits. I bought an old beat-up Mazda ’84 truck. I hated trucks. It was bashed up, filthy inside and out with paint chipping, a hole where the radio had been cut out and ignition switch torn from the dashboard. But, I knew Tasha would grow (oh yes, to a surprising 100 pounds) and my two seat sports car wouldn’t work much longer for the new us.

Pilgrimage – Walking El Camino de Santiago

By Deborah Schafer

Initially Kristen, my daughter, had asked for a book on the Camino for Christmas 2012, and it really shocked me, because when I was her age I had read about it and wanted to do this pilgrimage but never told anyone because it was so out of my league. I just did not take those type of risks, going to countries that do not speak English, hiking up and over mountains. I didn't like to get too physical....but I sensed that this was the time. Kris could take the summer off, and I would just retire. So at 61 I started working out for the first time in my life. I knew I would have to leave my precious comfort zone behind, so I promised myself I would not object to the weather. This was a big deal to me, but as it turned out, only the beginning. I learned that I bring a lot of resistance to most things I do. And that is the purpose in the end to taking risks-to become vulnerable to events in a way that you find out what you are made of. I found my precious identity beneath all that comfort zone. And I saw into the hearts of others as they helped me, guided me, and walked with me. I know something about myself now, and others, and I feel so much more a participant in life instead of an observer.

Subject: Camino news
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:18:34 -0500

Hey, are you guys pilgrims?  This was the first recognition of us as pilgrims, standing on the train platform in Bordeaux, from a man and his family looking for their train to Bayonne, and then to St. Jean Pied du Port.  Pilgrims themselves, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, we would meet them two more times before beginning our journey the next day.  It felt surreal being recognized as part of this larger scheme of things, and signaled the beginning for me of this journey. 

Maybe it was a good thing I did not know we would have to travel straight up a mountain at a 45 degree angle for a day when we left St. Jean, and then travel the following day in bitterly cold rain over the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles, arriving late in the day so cold we could not hold the pen to sign in.  And maybe it was a good thing I did not know we would leave the next morning in wet clothes in pouring rain to travel to Burgette, just 3 km away, where we picked up a hotel room at the Hotel Burgette, where Hemingway used to sojourn, and was given his room at 9:00 in the morning so we could fall into bed for the day and recover.