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the Divine is our partner, waiting to use us as a messenger of hope, love, and service, we choose to contribute rather than hold back. When we decide to allow our lives to be used, we are released from the torture of our individual dramas, flaws, and stories.
    To claim your purpose is the great journey of your lifetime. It is the journey that takes you from remembering to knowing, that leads you from your head to your heart. The courageous warrior within you—the one who has fought the gravitational pull of shame, hurt, hopelessness, and despair—is the keeper of your divine confidence. And she will help you to claim your most holy reason for being.

The Courageous Love Warrior
    Courage is a holy gift that exists within you. It’s yours when you are ready to reunite with it. When you awaken to courage, it becomes an exciting, life-enhancing force that will lift you back into your power and guide you home to your authentic nature. The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are—without apology, without excuses, without masks to cover the truth of who you are. True courage comes not just from feeling confident and strong, but from being the honest, authentic expression of yourself. Think about how audacious it is to really believe in yourself. It takes a warrior’s courage to acknowledge that your point of view matters, that your truth matters, that your gifts matter, and that your presence on this earth matters. You don’t have to earn this right; it’s yours as part of your birthright.
    A warrior’s courage is your lifeline to freedom. Can you imagine being so confident that you feel free to just be who you are? Free to be authentic and straight and to show yourself completely in every moment? Free to be vulnerable and free to be bold? Free to expose all aspects of yourself, even the not-so-charming parts? Freedom reigns when you don’t have to put on airs or hide your true thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Freedom reigns when you can speak your gifts out loud and stand up for your greatness and your greatest truth. Freedom reigns when you embrace the courageous warrior that lives inside of you.
    A warrior’s courage is sourced from faith. It’s a powerful force inside of you, an innate impulse that compels you to take risks and face your fears instead of playing it safe inside a smaller self. A warrior’s courage allows you to let yourself be seen as raw, vulnerable, and real. A warrior’s courage inspires the greatest acts of authenticity. A warrior’s courage is the willingness to be radically honest with yourself and others. A warrior’s courage listens to the higher voice of her divine self and trusts her instincts. And when in the presence of what’s stopping her, a warrior is able to let go of what she believes she knows and take responsibility for her past, willing to go to battle against her fears, regrets, and past mistakes. A warrior’s courage is the ultimate freedom, the greatest gift you can allow yourself to experience.
    Most of us think about courage as something we do, something we think, or a decision we make. But a warrior’s courage is a gift that we receive at birth. It is a level of consciousness that, whether we have experienced it or not, must be held close, developed, and savored. It is a state of being. When you are standing in and being courageous, you don’t have to “ do ” courage. When you are doing courage, you tend to muscle through a situation or decision, which you have probably done before. This muscling through is not the kind of courage that transcends the moment, because it is more often than not sourced from fear, from “I have to” or “I should.” Instead, a warrior’s courage is poignant, purposeful, and directed toward where change needs to be made. And, as you will see throughout this book, when you experience a warrior’s courage, being and standing in the presence of it, you are clear that the rewards for letting it lead you are