A session with my therapist took an unexpected tack.

From my diary for 2019-11-28:

I was talking about Robert McAfee Brown‘s complete transference of anxiety onto the issue of liberation theology.  I am dumbfounded that transference actually works.  What anxieties do I face in attending to the here-and-now?

I said contemplation of the concrete present is what gives me confidence or courage, and enables me to step out and take risks.  As I said this, I felt courage, and felt the corresponding warmth in solar plexus, and enjoyed it.  So why don’t I do this more often?

If I had more courage, this could spell an end to procrastination and indecisiveness.  In both cases, this involves a willingness to abide untoward emotions, just as a soldier must do when he heads into battle.  I would do more for myself — Somehow, when I think this, the words “for myself” are always there. — and accomplish.  I might actually want my own place.  I might quit smoking.

A doubt has been:  just because that’s MY source for courage, is that THE source for courage?  Dare I tell others, this is THE source for courage?  I have no way to know if it is.  But I can tell my story, that this works for me.