The word “courage” comes from the Latin word for heart, which is “cor.” In its earliest form, and to the Romans and Greeks, courage literally meant “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”

Over time, and largely in the Protestant religious theology, the definition changed. Today, courage means being heroic, to have courage in the face of trouble or danger or fear.

We often associate courage with soldiers in war. Bruce Springsteen sings that the real heroes are the ordinary people who go to work every day, feed their families, and live their lives.

I have always struggled with the idea of courage, and what it means for me.

The modern definition has caused many people to lose touch with the idea that speaking openly and honestly about who we are, what we’re feeling, and about our very real  experiences is the true definition of courage.

Author  and scholar Brene Brown says that true heroics are about putting our lives, stories and vulnerability on the line and out into the world. That is perhaps the core definition of what my writing is about. I would never call myself a hero, and neither has anyone else.

I am not a hero, but I have probably suffered more from being honest than from any other source. Honesty can be the greatest relationship killer in the world. It is threatening to a lot of people.

Sometimes, courage means accepting yourself in spite of the consciousness of guilt and condemnation, wrote philosopher Paul Tillich.

“The courage to affirm oneself in spite of our anxiety (and self-doubt) is the courage which we have called the courage of confidence,” Tillich wrote. “It is rooted in the personal, total, and immediate certainty of…forgiveness.”

For me, this is an important idea. I have made so many mistakes, lost contact with so many people, been enmeshed in so much unwanted conflict, been so inept and confused about friendship, been so crippled by anger and fear, that I lost the courage to accept myself, to accept who I am. If I can’t do that, why on earth should anyone else?

The courage to be is, in my mind, the courage to accept myself as accepted, not just by a God, but by me. The spiritual challenge is to accept the unacceptable, in myself and in other people.

Faith, wrote Tillich, is the state of being grasped by the power of being.

The courage to be is an expression of faith, faith in me and my worth as a human being struggle to find meaning. I can’t say I’m there, but there is something heroic about that quest.