7 Motivational And Inspiring Stories About Finding Courage in Life
A lot of things in this life require courage. Without courage, we stay in our comfort zone and miss opportunities, and we live in a state of pain or grief much longer than we need to live there. With courage, we can accomplish great things and create a life that is worth living. If you need some courage right now, then I hope one of the following motivational and inspiring stories about finding courage will inspire you to gather it and find the strength to do what needs to be done.
1. A Story About Finding Courage To Deal With The Upcoming Death Of A Loved One
Carlie’s mom was going to die, it was just a matter of when. She had stage 4 cancer and was given a life expectancy of under 12 months. Carlie was living in denial and terrified to admit that truth to herself.
Carlie spent the first month after her mother’s suggested life expectancy avoiding her mother. She didn’t want to deal with the grief that was welling up inside of her. By avoiding her mother she could focus on other things that didn’t make her feel bad.
One day her mother showed up on Carlie’s doorstep unexpectedly. She had a scrapbook in her arms and said she wanted Carlie to take a look at it. Carlie and her mother sat down at the kitchen table and her mother opened up the scrapbook and went through it page by page with Carlie.
At the end, Carlie knew that she would no longer hide from the upcoming death. She also knew she wouldn’t focus on it either. The scrapbook, full of loving and happy moments between Carlie and her mother, had reminded her that her mother’s life was more important than her death and that Carlie wanted to soak up every moment that she had left with her mother.
She started her own scrapbook that same day focused solely on the journey her and her mother were taking together. Every week she filled it up with memories of what they did. Laughter, fun, love, and adventure were the main themes of the scrapbook.
The experiences she shared with her mother, along with the reminder of those experiences as she scrapbooked them, gave Carlie the courage to spend time with her mother, even when she wasn’t doing well. She cherished the life, not the death, and in the end, she learned that was really mattered the most.
Carlie says that this story is focused on one of the biggest lessons of her life. Moreover, it is one of few motivational and inspiring stories she shares with everyone she meets.
2. A Story About Finding The Courage To Leave An Abusive Spouse
Brittany’s husband was good to her for the first few months of marriage. She got pregnant, they were happy, and everything seemed perfect. Then she found out he was cheating on her.
She confronted him and yelled and screamed and slammed doors. She knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t believe that he would cheat on her. He didn’t say anything to her. He just walked out the door and didn’t come back for a week. He didn’t answer her calls. He gave her the silent treatment for the entire week and she nearly lost her mind.
Her friend told her that this kind of treatment was emotionally abusive and she needed to make sure she let her husband know that it was not okay to treat her like this. Instead, when her husband came back, she decided to let it go in fear that he would leave again. He never brought up that cheating incident and she was too scared to.
Then a few months later she found out he was still cheating on her and she flipped out again, expect this time he didn’t just leave. He grabbed her by the throat and told her that SHE had pushed him toward cheating because she was so crazy. Then he pushed her into the wall, walked out the door, and didn’t come back for two weeks. Again, he gave her the silent treatment.
When he came back, she had nearly lost her mind. Wondering where he had been, and assuming it was with the woman he cheated with, had left her feeling hopeless and unwanted. She felt weak and powerless, and she knew that if she pushed her husband again he would run back to the arms of his mistress, so she decided once again to let it go.
After she had their baby, her husband became angrier. He didn’t like the baby crying. He didn’t like the fact that his wife couldn’t always keep the house clean and have supper on the table for him. And he didn’t like the attention she was showing to her baby over him.
One night, as she got up to check on her crying baby, he told her to get back into bed. She told him that she needed to check in on the baby first, and started to walk towards the door. He jumped out of bed, grabbed by the hair, and threw her back into bed. He screamed, “I told you to get back to bed!” She instantly jumped back out of bed and tried to run towards the door. He grabbed her by the hair again and punched her in the side of the face and threw her back on the bed. The pain she felt was immense and she stayed in bed after that feeling both physical pain and emotional pain as she listened to her baby cry.
Five years later, she had two more kids and her husband had grown more emotionally and physically abusive. She felt trapped, not just by his abuse, but because he paid the bills and she believed that she couldn’t survive with three kids on her own. She just couldn’t find the courage to do what she needed to do.
Then, one day he spanked their oldest kid so hard that he couldn’t sit down without bawling in pain. That was when she found the courage to look into how to leave her abusive husband. Unfortunately, it took the abuse of her child to give her the courage that she needed.
Within a week, she had left her husband and found herself a safe place to start getting on her feet. It wasn’t easy with three kids, but it was much easier than being in an abusive relationship with her husband.
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Her husband did try to find her, but, eventually, he gave up on her and the kids and found himself a new woman to abuse. Brittany moved on and found herself a loving and caring man and now spends her days in a relationship that supports her, not drags her down. But, she says that she wishes she had found the courage to leave him earlier because she and her children didn’t deserve to live like that.
If you need to find the courage to leave an abusive spouse, remember Brittany’s words and find other motivational and inspiring stories that help you to realize that nobody deserves to live in a state of fear and unhappiness. Love doesn’t hurt like that. Having the courage to leave an abusive relationship means giving yourself a gift of a better, happier, and more loving life. And, if you take the proper precautions and plan things out, everything will work out when you are on your own no matter how scary or unlikely it seems.
3. A Story About Finding The Courage To Quit A Job
John hated his job. It made him miserable just to think about going into work. But, he did, day after day, because his job was easy and gave him a steady paycheck and it was comfortable to him. The thought of going out and finding a new job scared the heck out of him because he had been doing the same thing for over ten years, even though he had been miserable for all of those ten years.
His misery towards his job was starting to affect the rest of his life. Mostly his relationship with his wife and his health. He would come home and take his frustration out on his wife, which led to fights and loss of quality time needed to keep their relationship strong. As they grew apart, and he felt unloved and unsupported, and his health started to suffer. He was always sick with a cold and felt like all of his energy had been sucked out of him. He started to take more and more sick days because he simply couldn’t muster up the energy to work.
One day, he went to work and his boss called him into her office. She said, “John, we are going to have to let you go. Your co-workers have caught you sleeping on the job, and your quality of work is just not up to par.”
John left the office dumbfounded. He went home and slept the next two days straight so he didn’t have to deal with the fact that he had lost his job.
Then, one day, he woke up to his wife sitting beside him. She said, “John, losing your job was the best thing that could have happened to you. You hated that job. You would have never left on your own. The universe has given you a gift to find something better and be happier in life. Take it.”
John thought about her words for the rest of the day, and he found that he started to get excited about life again. He realized that she was right. He now had a blank canvas in front of him to work with and could do anything he wanted.
John had always been passionate about music and he eventually created his own business where he gives guitar lessons. He has plans of expanding his business, but for now, he’s working at a retail job that he enjoys as he works on his business plan. He’s never been happier and he has one piece of advice for anyone trying to find the courage to quit their job: Do it!
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You don’t need to wait to get fired to leave a job that makes you miserable. There are plenty of motivational and inspiring stories out there of people who quit or got fired from their job and still lived a happy life (usually happier).
You can choose to go after your dreams, find a job that you enjoy, and create your own future. There are so many different paths you can take in life and you get to choose which path is right for you. You never have to be stuck. If you are willing to get out of bed and put in the effort towards creating a career that aligns with who you are, then it will happen.
To read the other 4 inspirational stories of courage click here: http://www.ilanelanzen.com/other/7-motivational-and-inspiring-stories-about-finding-courage-in-life/