25 Things That Make Me Feel Brave

This is a companion list to "25 Things of Which I Am Afraid".

1. I feel brave when I put on my shoe without thoroughly shaking it out to see if there's a critter in their who will eat my toes.
2. I feel brave when I tell someone straight up that I will not be treated in a certain way.
3. I feel brave when I stand up and don't let people tell what I am or am not.
4. I feel brave when I confess to someone that I need their help.
5. I feel brave when I face the deep winter with my seasonal depression and make it through with less battle wounds than the year before.
6. I feel brave when I hold someone's hand so that we can feel the weight of their pain together.
7. I feel brave when I tell someone how much they mean to me.
8. I feel brave when I own up to doing something I'm not proud of rather than cover it up.
9. I feel brave when I use the toaster and don't have to go through my ritual of unplugging it and using plastic tongs.
10. I feel brave when I remain open to another's religious belief even though I am still dealing with the pain the religious beliefs of others created in my life as a child.
11. I feel brave when I accomplish something now that an earlier version of me never thought I could.
12. I feel brave when I think about 2007, which let the Palinode and I know that neither broken backs nor cancer, even when found together in the same marriage, cannot sink us.
13. I feel brave when I love without reserve.
14. I feel brave when I look back and realize that I haven't smoked for just over two years now.
15. I feel brave when I stand my ground about not wanting children.
16. I feel brave when I manage to pull back from the irrational fear that my cats will set out to consciously hurt me.
17. I feel brave when I go to blogging conferences, because I am naturally shy.
18. I feel brave when I stand up to say something in front of a group of people and don't whither in a dead faint.
19. I feel brave when, on a particularly difficult evening, I don't drink.
20. I feel brave when I actually enjoy hanging out with a baby, because, although I like babies, I am certainly not used to them.
21. I feel brave when I write something powerful about my personal history.
22. I feel brave when old friends find me on Facebook, and I let them in to see who I am now.
23. I feel brave when I walk to work through -40° weather.
24. I feel brave when I talk to people whom I greatly admire.
25. I feel brave when I help someone else to be brave in the face of what they fear.

Me at Aiming Low: Taking Bravery Back

"Taking Bravery Back":

Bravery is not just for children as they learn how to become greater people and for heroes only in the most extreme situations. Bravery is for us. It’s our courage that makes us greater people.