COURAGE - Facing Difficulties With Courage & Creativity

Facing Difficulties With Courage & Creativity

by Rebekah Sager

When it comes to facing difficult times, doctoral candidate, teacher, speaker, writer, and breast cancer survivor,  Jenny Finn understands darkness. She says she’s devoted to living radically and wholeheartedly on the planet. “Embracing the darkness allows us to live more deeply rooted from the wholeness of our human experience,” Finn says.

Jenny’s research and teaching fosters greater intimacy with all of life by exploring creative and courageous ways to face what is uncomfortable, awkward, and even painful within.

She is deeply committed to practices that keep her in her breathing body which include walking, running, dancing, playing music, yoga, cooking and eating delicious food, hugging her family a lot, and more. She is grateful for all of her teachers who taught her how to live more wakefully and devotedly.

We asked Ms.Finn if she could offer our readers five tips for facing challenging times courageously, these were her words of wisdom.

1. Choose to face it. If you’re not facing your challenges, you’re running from them. You’ll turn to something outside of yourself–food, drugs, someone else. It’s hard to face something, but it’s a necessary evil.

2. Find a guide. A community, therapist, minister, or mentor, it’s easier to have help identifying difficulties with someone who thinks outside the box.

3. Go into the “shadow places” with creativity. Through creativity we can explore, otherwise we use our heads not our hearts to diagnose the threats. Ancient practitioners understood about hanging in the darkness and facing issues through creative outlets. A guided walk in the wilderness, painting your story, or dancing your anger are all good ways to work through challenges. Creativity is the greatest doorway to healing.

4. Be aware of your breathing. It’s the best tool we have for challenging and diluting negative energy–breath.  Many ancient texts are equated with breath or movement of wind.

5. Pay attention. If not you may miss the treasures that lie in the darkness. Kiss discomfort, that’s when darkness is just darkness. When you’re navigating life wholeheartedly and living fully, you can own your darkness. “Dive into deep dark water to find the shimmering coin.”