The True Meaning of Having The Courage To Be You

I have always thought (and still do) think that having the courage to be you is to be more loyal to our own values than to the values of others. Extending this thought even more is having the courage to grow and embrace new experiences, both chosen and not chosen.

To dive deeper into courage let’s turn our attention to the wonderful words of Socrates describing Plato’s story called “The Republic” some 2400 years ago. This story’s central focus is Plato’s cave. Socrates described a group of people who lived chained in a cave all their lives. This whole time they faced a blank wall.

All they could see was this blank wall and some shadows reflecting on it from things passing by a fire behind them.

This dazzling show of shadows on this blank wall became their lives…completely. These shadows, sadly, would be the closest the cave’s prisoners would get to seeing reality. They had continually been told about this outside world. However, they continued to believe that all that existed were these shadows on the wall.

Even after they actually suspected that there was more, they were unwilling to leave what was familiar.

Humanity today are like the prisoners in Plato’s cave, who have only seen the shadows on the cave wall. These shadows represent our thoughts. The world of thinking is the only world most of us know, but there is another world beyond thinking.

Are we willing to leave that cave? Are we willing to leave behind everything we have ever known? To find out the truth of who we are?

True embracement of having the courage to be you, is to wake up. Wake up from the roles and characters we have been playing. We need to turn our attention away from our thoughts and move toward the light. Both the moon and the sun give off light, but only one is the source of the light and the other one is merely reflecting it. Our thoughts are the moon, but our soul, our hearts are the sun, the source of light. 

The mind is a trap for consciousness. It is not that we are in the prison…we are the prison. If we fight to get out of the illusion we are giving the illusion ‘reality.’

I’ve been curious for so long about who is the watcher, observer, witnesser in me and in you. Having the courage to be you is to get lost and be on this journey to the centre of our souls. To reconnect with the light source within us. To stop identifying with the cloud and wake up and realise we are the sky.

Something to reflect on…..but don’t think about this too much!!! 😊

Thank you for reading, as always, deeply appreciated, Joe.  

You can listen to Episode 62 of Insights the Podcast by clicking below.