You're Brave Because You Went Back to the Place Where Your Heart Was Broken

Seneca said that when the sun is in eclipse and disappears, you can see its greatness more clearly. Most of us go through life looking for “more”; to have more money, be more beautiful, more intelligent, more loved. Thus, in this state of wanting to have more than others, we forget that the search for greatness only hides pettiness. The real sign of greatness is to enjoy the small things and perform small acts that demonstrate that you are brave.

You don’t have to perform a heroic act, struggle against an oppressor or do great deeds to be brave. Someone w ho goes to visit a sick friend, who comforts a crying child, who dares to return to the place where their heart was broken is also a hero. 

The Enneagram of uncertainly and its hidden virtue: courage

The Enneagram is a technique used by psychotherapists, psychiatrists and coaches which classifies personalities into 9 different characters called enneagram types.

The 9 enneagram types are broadly as follows (in parentheses are the defects of each): the reformer (anger), the helper (pride), the achiever (vanity), the individualist (envy), the investigator (greed), the loyalist (fear), the enthusiast (gluttony), the challenger (lust) and peacemaker (laziness).

If you want to know more about enneagram types and identify which one is yours is in order to start growing and improving yourself, you can do so with the course “Discover your personality with the Enneagram” by Alberto Peña Chavarino.

In our case, we are interested in Enneatype No. 6 (the loyalist) because his defect is laziness, but his hidden virtue is courage. Enneatype 6 is always caught in a sea of doubt, because he is afraid, feels danger and is unable to decide.

Courage and bravery are meant to address fear and go towards what we are afraid of, with determination and confidence, by knowing the risks. But how do we cope with our fears and act bravely? We will see below.

The first step to becoming brave: forgiveness

When someone hurts us we tend to choose revenge more than anything to make the person who hurt us pay. Every time we think about revenge, the wound that was created, whether emotional or physical, opens up and hurts, making us feel the pain again.

The remedy for this circle of pain is forgiveness. Forgiveness is when we trade destructive behavior against the person that hurt us, for constructive behavior.

Forgiveness is the necessary step to move from the thirst for revenge to the courage to not to be dominated by hatred, but by the freedom from the damage they have caused us.

Some believe that forgiveness not only involves changing the behavior we spoke about, but positive action toward that person who has hurt us. On the other hand, forgiveness is not a single action but a process that goes through several stages that are completed to achieve complete forgiveness.

Go back to where you were hurt

Going back to where we were hurt is an act of courage, which may seem small, but it makes us everyday heroes. When the feeling a place causes us is very intense, it brings back many memories we try to avoid.

However, sometimes in order t o forgive, it is necessary to return in a special way: learning to manage what we feel when we go back and not by getting carried away by it.

What do you feel when you return to the apartment where you lived with the partner that has left you? At first, you feel frustration, sadness and many images of a happy and not so happy past come to mind. But you cannot forget you’re in the present because it is this time that you must enjoy and live. Gradually erasing those memories and building others depends on your courage and forgiveness.

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