A reflection on 2025, courage, bravery, and the art of receiving
What a gift 2025 was (truly š) even though, in many ways, it began unexpected and unclear.
This was not a year of more. It was a year of maturity.
I love the wind. Itās why I love the ocean more than the water itself.
The wind calls my name. It brings me peace.
And yet- while part of me longs to fly with it, my life has been anchored in the earth like an oak tree. Rooted. Growing. Receiving the elements year after year.
I get the gift of the wind without having to ride it. Though some day I will do a hot air balloon ride.
Maturity vs. More
One of the great gifts of this year has been the maturing of my thinking around focus.
What we focus on matters.
Thereās a story often told about Mother Teresa: she would attend a pro-peace rally, but never an anti-war rally. Her reasoning was simple and profound- our minds donāt register āantiā or āpro.ā They register war or peace. Whatever we focus on, we get more of.
Our brains are builders.
They construct what they are given to attend to.
As Iāve been healing, maturing, and flourishing, this truth has landed in my body; not just my mind. AND thatās where transformation actually happens.
Transformation, as it turns out, is an inside job. (As much as I would love to delegate it out.)
This year has been filled with quiet, 2% shifts- nuanced changes that donāt announce themselves loudly but alter everything over time. Harvest takes time to show.
Focus, Intention, and the Words We Conflate
In pursuing focus, which I believe is a pillar of intentionality, and intentionality a pillar of prioritizing what is important, Iāve discovered just how many concepts we conflate.
Home vs. house.
Urgent vs. important.
Courage vs. bravery.
Guarding vs. protecting.
Iām a both/and person. Most of the time, we need both truths.
The trouble comes when we confuse them or donāt know which one to lead with in a given season or moment.
I love the word important.
AND I also respect the rightful place of urgent.
Iām not anti-urgent.
Iām pro-relationship- with both.
This holiday season, with its quieter rhythm and gift of presence, gave me space to sit with two distinctions I want to understand more deeply:
- courage vs. bravery
- guarding vs. protecting
Today, Iām starting with courage and bravery.
Courage vs. Bravery
For years, Iāve prioritized courage.
Courage is unpracticed confidence.
It is the muscle that allows us to live faithfully rather than merely successfully.
Its root is corāthe heart.
To live courageously is to act from the heart, even when the cost is known.
In the summer of 2023, 10x Is Easier Than 2x helped crystallize something essential for me: owning what I truly want. That season required risking what felt like everythingāand in many ways, it was my āallāāto live and lead from my heart more honestly.
I could write chapters about that chapter.
But then came a quieter conversation in the fall of 2025 about emotionally safe rooms. I encountered unsafe rooms in ways that shocked my system, and it revealed something new:
Creating emotionally safe space doesnāt just require courage.
It requires bravery.
That realization sent me down a rabbit trail.
What Bravery Really Is
Hereās what surprised me:
- Courage is a noun.
- Brave is an adjective.
Courage comes from the Latin and Old Frenchāthe heart.
Brave comes from Old French as well, meaning bold, splendid, visible. It shares roots with Germanic words meaning to shine, to display.
Bravery did not originally mean fearless.
It meant seen.
So this landed for me:
- Courage says: I will face this.
- Bravery says: I will not hide.
Courage faces truth and accepts its upfront cost.
Bravery allows oneself to be seen without controlling the outcome.
We can choose our choices.
We cannot choose their consequences.
From Self-Abandonment to Self-Trust
As I look back on 2025, the deepest work was internalāmy relationship with myself.
I began moving from self-abandonment toward self-trust.
From hiding toward allowing myself to be seen.
And I began to wonder:
What if courage is what we giveā
and bravery is what we allow ourselves to receive?
Healthy living requires both inhaling and exhaling.
Most of us are excellent at exhaling: doing, speaking, offering, leading.
But what does it look like to inhale?
To receive life.
To receive the wind and its gifts.
To be brave enough to stay open.
Intention for 2026
As I name my intention for 2026, two words keep rising:
Brave
Receive
Expansive and receptive.
Rooted like an oak,
and finally willing to let the wind move through me versus wishing what it is not going to do. It will take my seeds but not me.
More to come.
May I have the courage to face truth AND the bravery to be seen by it.