the encouragement lounge: Encouragement and courage

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Encouragement and courage

"En-couraged people act with feeling and passion; they transcend separate self, isolation, inaction, and stasis. It often takes courage to 'move toward' and engage with others, to act from a place of authentic and strong emotion. We do not achieve courage once and for all, but we re-create it."

- Judith Jordan from "Courage and Connection: Conflict Compassion, Creativity," Work in Progress, no. 45 (Wellesley, MA: Stone Center, Wellesley College, 1990), p. 3 ((as cited in Robb, C. (2007), "This Changes Everything: The Relational Revolution in Psychology." New York: Picador.))

photo by HLS

1 comment:

AnonymousOctober 22, 2009 at 3:43 PM
What a great quote and how appropriate for this blog!
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Working adult students, on my mind...

I hope this blog will be helpful to friends and others involved in a variety of endeavors. However, I created the blog with students in mind and continue to develop it with that specific group as my focus.

I believe that with the increase in evening, weekend, and low-residency programs, students are working more and more in isolation. If we were all full-time students on campus, we would have the informal support that comes with being able to go down the hall and talk with a colleague, etc. But instead, we are working late nights and weekends at home in front of the laptop.

With that in mind, I hope the encouragement lounge provides brief moments of respite and energizing connection. This does not at all replace valuable face-to-face contact. Many aspects of the academic journey can only be addressed via in-depth conversations with colleagues and teachers. And I would always rather sit down and talk with someone than to communicate online. Nonetheless, my aim is to give you one more channel for quick hits of support.