Marian Buck Murray

EFT and IFS for Sensitive, Creative People. Empower yourself self-compassion and deep understanding.

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22 Tips to Boost Your Courage

July 21, 2017 by Marian Buck-Murray 1 Comment

 

Courage sign

Got Courage?  For me, courage is essential for everything from growing my business to living my life in a more authentic, joyful, loving, way. 

A few months ago I taught a workshop called the Courage Experiment.  My goal was to experiment with different courage boosting techniques, and share them with others.   Here are 22 techniques I’ve found to be most helpful.  Experiment, and discover what works for you. Enjoy!

Seek Courageous Role Models – Look around at the people in your life, in the media, in books, and in history.  Who are your courageous role models? Learn about the ways in which they use their courage.  Adopt strategies that appeal to you.

Collect Courage Quotes — Use the internet to find quotes about courage.  Collect quotes that really speak to you. Print some out, and post them where you’ll see them.

Embrace Your Fear – Feel your fear. Practice sending compassion and understanding to yourself in your moments of fear.  Sometimes just pausing with this intention is enough to release fear.

Admit to your Fears with a Friend – Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to admit we’re afraid.  Fear loves to hide in secrecy.  Sharing your fears with an understanding friend or counselor will usually help dispel some of the fear.

Don’t Engage the Drama–  By-pass worst-case scenarios.  We never know what’s going to happen, so why imagine the scariest possibilities? Fear feeds on drama, and will multiply the more we engage.  Practice stepping away from the drama, and imagining better-feeling scenarios.

Avoid unnecessary hesitation – The more you hesitate, the more your mind will interfere to tell you all the reasons why you should fret, worry, and not take that courageous action step you planned to take.

Commit Yourself in Advance – Schedule your courageous acts ahead of time.   Then, show up.

Do it with a friend – Practice with a friend.  Celebrate together as you take courageous action steps.

Start Small – It can be hard to find courage to do something that feels big and scary.  Instead, take a good look at the big and scary goal, and then break it down into smaller, friendlier steps.

Enter a state of non-resistance.  – Courage can be tough to muster when we’re dreading doing something.  Practice letting go of resistance, and being present with whatever happens along your way.

Tap into your BIG WHY – Why do you want to use your courage?  Get clear about your true, authentic intentions.  When we feel really inspired and motivated, sometimes we’ll do just about anything to get what we want.

Visualize Best Outcomes – Visualization is a very powerful technique to help us imagine our best outcomes.  By visualizing what you want, you will activate your reticular activator to help you begin to see evidence of what you’re visualizing.  By allowing yourself to feel the energy of your imagined scene, you can boost both your enthusiasm and your courage.

Do Things that Others Don’t.  – Practice following the beat of your own drum.  The more comfortable you are doing your own thing, the more courage you will have to do anything.

Turn Obstacles and Failures into Assets – It’s easy to use obstacles and failures as excuses to forgo our courage.   By turning obstacles and failures into opportunities to learn and grow, we can bypass fear, and move forward with courage.   This fortifies our courage to continue, despite obstacles or failures along our way.

Expand Your Knowledge – Many times we’re scared of what we don’t know or understand.  By increasing your knowledge about a particular area, you will increase your confidence and courage to explore areas you might previously have avoided.

Incremental Exposure – Little by little, expose yourself to the thing that you fear.

Imagine How You’ll Feel after You Do It.  Imagining how good you’ll feel once you take action will boost your enthusiasm and your courage.

Exercise – Any form of exercise will help release pent-up stress and anxiety.  In addition, you will strengthen your sense of confidence as you follow through with regular exercise. Confidence nourishes courage.

Meditation – Meditation will help you feel centered, grounded, and relaxed.  When you come from a place of centered calm, courage is much easier to access.

Affirmations – Affirmations, when frequently repeated, will assist your subconscious mind in helping you feel more courageous.  Create a few short, easy-to-say, affirmations.  For example:  “I love feeling courageous.”  Or “My courage brings success.” Repeat throughout your day, and/or for 2-5 minutes at a time.  Remember — repetition increases the power of an affirmation.

Heart Breath – The heart breath will help you drop out of a worried, stressed mind, into the peace and wisdom of your heart.  To do the heart breath, close your eyes and take a few long deep breaths.  Next, continue to breathe deeply while imagining you are breathing in and out of your heart.  Continue to breathe this way for 1-5 minutes.

EFT Tapping – EFT Tapping, tapping on specific acupressure points on the face, torso, and hand, helps to reduce cortisol, the major stress hormone.  Calming your nervous system is an important first step in cultivating courage.   Contact me at marian@marianbuckmurray.com if you’d like to learn more about EFT Tapping.

Our Beautiful World Needs YOUR Courage!

In Courage,

Marian

Filed Under: EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Uncategorized Tagged With: affirmations, Boost Courage, EFT tapping, EFT Tapping for Fear, meditation, overcome fear, Tips for Courage, visualization

4 Steps to Stop Fear in Its Tracks

August 9, 2016 by Marian Buck-Murray Leave a Comment

Woman finger pushing domino of red fear word falling, isolated on white.

Fear.  I know it well.  As a solopreneur, I frequently face fear when I think about what I can do to grow my business. Fear can easily stop me from taking productive action —  if I let it.

Whatever type of work you do, whether it’s for your job, your business, your home, your family, or your creative life, fear can have the power to stop you in your tracks.  It might stop you from starting a creative project, or exploring a new opportunity.  It might hold you back from promoting yourself and your business.  It might keep you stuck and unable to move forward.

Whichever way fear gets in your way, it’s important to take steps to manage your fear, before it has the chance to stop you.

Here are 4 Steps to Stop Fear in Its Tracks, before it stops you.

Step 1 Recognize when you’re in fear, or hiding from fear.  Recognize what fear does to your body and mind. Recognize how it tries to influence your actions.  Once you’ve recognized your fear, get as clear as you can about the target of your fear, in other words, what are you really afraid of?

(BTW– Fear loves to hide, read more about  its 3 favorite hiding places. )

Step 2 Embrace your fear.  The majority of fear comes from past experiences.  One of my clients is a talented singer, but was fearful of singing in public.  This was a result of a childhood experience when someone made fun of her. By embracing the younger, very disappointed place within her, she was able to release her fear.  She now performs regularly on a variety of stages.

So next time you’re feeling fearful about doing something bigger and bolder, embrace yourself with compassion.  Allow yourself to sense the younger part of yourself that may have felt afraid or hurt in a similar situation.  You may notice that a mix of emotions come up.

Step 3  Release the Fear.  EFT Tapping is a quick, effective way to release fear.  Anything that helps to lower cortisol, such as deep breathing, yoga, and meditation will also help. Below, at the bottom of this post, you’ll find a brief tapping EFT audio to help you release fear.

Step 4  Activate Your Courage.  The final step in the 4-step process is to activate your courage.  Once  you’ve used a technique such as EFT to release your fear, you’ll feel more relaxed.  This is the best time to take action.  Taking action will help you develop your courage.

Right now, decide on 2-3 small action steps you will take in the next week to help you move forward.  Get your momentum going, and your courage will grow.

Below is the Tapping for Fear audio. This audio includes a brief EFT tapping round to help you release fear around a creative or business-related project.   If you’re new to EFT Tapping,  click here for illustrated instructions.

 

https://marianbuckmurray.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/EFT-Tapping-For-Fear-4Step-Process.mp3

 

Download Now

In Courage,

Marian

FREE TRAINING:  Overcome the Fear of Shining in Your Business So You can Do What You Love. Click here for download.

Filed Under: EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), Uncategorized Tagged With: Courage, creativity, EFT for Fear, EFT tapping, fear and creativity, fear in business, overcome fear

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The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with nature.

Joseph Campbell
Certified EFT Practitioner

Disclaimer: The information and concepts presented on this website are for educational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any disease or condition. It is not intended to substitute for the advice, treatment and/or diagnosis of a qualified licensed medical professional.

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