Lion’s Whiskers offers this courage challenge: As an opportunity to put your moral courage muscles to work, take a pet peeve and trace its origins.  If you find yourself complaining about hiked gas prices, consider the choices in your life that have made you dependent on your automobile.  When you are annoyed by another’s behavior, consider how that behavior may mirror something that you deny, don’t accept, or don’t like in yourself.  For example, if you find yourself complaining about how long your child takes to get ready in the morning, is it possible that you, too, are not a morning person?  Is it possible that you might need to wake up a little earlier and/or help your child the night before to ease the morning routine?  Perhaps you find yourself complaining about people who ignore local bylaws and don’t pick up their dogs’ poop, forgetting the times you, too, were caught without a poop bag? 

Tracing your own responsibility for what goes on in the world will help you teach your child to do the same.  None of us lives in a bubble – our lives are connected in an intricate web of decisions and choices.  For a humbling example of how our kids offer us daily opportunities to put this moral courage challenge into practice, read Lisa’s post What Goes Around, Comes Around!

Care to share one of your pet peeves and what its origins might have to do with you? 

Lion’s Whiskers offers this courage challenge: Consider a small-as-a-mouse or large-as-an-elephant obstacle in your or your child’s life blocking the way to personal or professional success. 

Today, September 9, 2011 is the Indian festival Ganesh Chaturthi!  It is a celebration of the birth of Lord Ganesha, the Hindu God of wisdom.  Lord Ganesha is traditionally referred to as “the remover of obstacles” and representative of prosperity, prudence, and success. 

What is the elephant in the room?  Perhaps removing your personal obstacle will require the social courage to invite a new friend over for a playdate or out for coffee, or to say “Hello!” to passersby on the street today.  This challenge may also require the physical courage to overcome entrenched habits by trying some new foods, flavors, or fitness activity. Or, it could require removing emotional stressors by saying “No” to particular activities, people, or habits that no longer inspire but instead exhaust you.

What’s a true story from your life about an elephant in the room or on your path that you’ve successfully removed? 

Do nothing!   Set a timer for five minutes, and then sit quietly doing nothing other than breathing, and letting your thoughts pass across your mind without judgment like clouds passing across the sky.  Try not to check the timer.  Don’t make plans for what you’ll do when the five minutes are up.   Try this challenge with your kids.  Next time you’re considering giving your child a time-out, give both of you the time-in together for five minutes of silence.  Will you need courage to set aside the busy-ness of your life for five minutes?  Sometimes, when we don’t build time into our lives for quiet contemplation we become reactive instead of mindfully responding in line with our life-affirming values.

This week was the start of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.  Consider fasting for the day, or giving up one meal.  What is important enough to you to make a sacrifice?  What sorts of feelings does it bring up to deny yourself something you enjoy?  What does the concept of “purification” mean to you?  Would you need courage?

Challenge your palate today.  Visit the grocery store or farmer’s market and find something you’ve never eaten.  Is there a funky-looking vegetable you can’t even identify?  Will you have to ask the produce manager what it is and how to cook it?  How about a spice or sauce with a name that’s hard to pronounce?  Get out of your comfort zone and into the kitchen.

For a funny take on this approach to life, try the movie Yes Man with Jim Carrey.  Caution: rated PG-13.

One night this weekend, mix it up at bedtime.  Either everybody switches bedrooms, or you all sleep backwards in your own beds, or you could build a tent in some other room in the house for you ALL to sleep in for the night!  Most of us are accustomed to sleeping in new places when we travel, but what about in your own home?  What’s it like to inhabit your child’s space?   Notice what feels different about turning over your bedroom to your child or piling blankets and pillows on the kitchen floor.   Does switching it up get you out of your comfort zone, and if so, what can you learn about yourself by changing a simple routine?  We believe that adaptation and flexibility are integral to all six types of courage.