Fear.

I enjoy hearing stories about how I was as a child. It's interesting for me to hear how I was before I cared what others thought about me. One story that my mom told me in passing at one time is how I was a afraid of dogs when I was little. They bought a dog when I was around 2 years old with the purpose of it helping me over come my fear. I find this very interesting because I'm absolutely obsessed with dogs now. The only reason I do not own one of my own at this moment in time is because I travel too much. Instead of having my own to feed my love, I love on everyone else's dog. Thankfully my roommate has a dog whom I'm madly in love with so I'm able to keep the puppy fever away.

It's fascinating to me when I recall this story of me being afraid of dogs at one point. It's a complete foreign concept that I would ever run from something that brings me so much joy, but that's what fear does. Fear drives us into the opposite direction. It keeps joy at arm distance away with the simple lie that joy will not be found on the other side.

I've come to learn that fear is just a gate keeper. It's the guardian to this unknown territory. It tells us stories of all the bad that could happen if we decide to cross over. It warns us of the mysteries that lie ahead. Though fear can have us trembling and running in the opposite direction, all it really is is a story teller. It stands at the gate with no weapon, no chains to keep us from crossing, just stories. Yet, we stand and listen. We listen and find that our knee's have buckled and we are paralyzed from the waist down. We begin to believe the stories, we begin to believe the lies. The lie that there is no way something good could be waiting for us on the other side.

I wrote a blog about a month ago called Surrender . I wrote about my goal to finally surrender my life and to trust in what's to come. I wish I could give you some poetic story about how I've zenned out and have basically been frolicking through fields of daisies every day, but I haven't. In fact, if you were every wondering what would happen when you decide to give up control be warned that there is a HIGH possibility that you will come to find out just how much of a control freak you really are. You find yourself coming into contact with EVERYTHING you have zero control of. You will find all the unanswered questions standing next to you at a concert and only be able to stand there knowing they will remain unanswered. You will find that your future will become even more blurred and you have to wait for time to reveal each step at a time. Your desires will intensify knowing that there is nothing you can do to satisfy them now.

This is when fear presents itself. Thoughts of the unknown come flooding into your head. You begin to become afraid that this season of your life will never end and find yourself entertaining the thought that God has forgotten about you. That he has forgotten all your prayers over the years. That his mercy has officially run out and your left to fend for yourself.

But these are just stories. Fear is only a story teller and I get to decide what I want to believe. I close my eyes and despite the voice of fear begging me not to cross to the other side, I think about the time I was afraid of dogs. I think about what life would be like if my parents had never bought a dog. I think about how different things would be and how I would miss out on the joy those sweet animals give me on a daily basis.

So I keep walking forward. I find ways to tune out the voice of fear and choose to believe that there is a great chance that the very thing I'm afraid of now is the very thing that will bring me joy later in life.

I get to choose who I want to be right now. I get that freedom and with it I choose to always want good for others, even if the questions will always remain unknown. I will always choose to be in their corner cheering for their good. I choose to trust that the future is a mix of good and bad and despite how hard it is to just focus on one or the other, I choose to look at the whole picture. I choose to cherish my desires and know that the ones that were meant to bring me good will eventually be fed and the ones that will only cause me harm will eventually die from starvation.

I have good days and I have bad days. Some days are easier that others but what I'm coming to find is that the day after my weakest day, I find new strength. I'm able to handle hard days better. I'm able to fight off fear a bit longer than I was able to before.

Daily, I have to remind myself that control is just an illusion. I was never in control in the first place. Daily, I have to find all the good words and promises to keep my head above water.

The truth is that I will never truly overcome fear or the desire of control in this life. It will always be a battle for me, yet I keep fighting because with each little victory I find myself feeling free.

Oh, I love feeling free.

There Are Worse Things Than Being Alone

I get this particular question more often then not.

"Are you seeing anyone or in a relationship?"

I get asked by my students (because they are adorable and sometimes want to know as much about my life as they tell me about theirs). I get asked by doctors, random homeless men in the street, strangers in the elevator.

I really don't know why this question is always asked. Maybe it's because they notice I do not have a ring on my hand, maybe it's just to fill the awkward silence in the room, maybe it's because people just genuinely want to know about my life and that just seems to be the easiest question to ask at times.

My answer is typically, "No, I'm not seeing or dating anyone." Then as if I have just told them the most shocking answer in history, their facial expressions change and I'm thrown with the big question, "Why not?!"

I honestly do not mind having this question. I know for other's who are asked the same question it just depresses them and they just shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't know."

Me on the other hand, well I've decided to have a little fun with my response. You see, I'm about as simple as a Taylor Swift song and as complex as a paragraph written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. So what's a girl to do to keep a response simple, yet show there is more than meets the eye. So my go to response now is this, "there are worse things than being alone."

I LOVE watching people's reactions to this. Their whole demeanor changes. Instead of a sympathetic or confused looked, I change the whole dynamic of the conversation and am met with a little laugh, head nodding, and amen's.

The conversations moves into a different direction and people tend to change the way they look at me. I think it's because what I say is the truth. When I say, "there are worse things than being alone." I see the memories flash before peoples eyes. The heartbreak they had experienced themselves or of someone they love. It reminds people that as wonderful as a relationship can be, it can go to the other extreme and be one of the most traumatic experiences of their life. 

I'm relational by nature and am a huge advocate of having and developing healthy relationships. So when I say, "there are worse things than being alone", I'm in no form or fashion downing or against relationships. I've just come to a place in life when I realized that if I'm going to have a relationship in my life, I want it to means something. I want it to serve a purpose greater than numbing the sting loneliness can bring you. 

I was out with a good friend of mine the other night and I found myself outwardly reflecting on my life as it currently is. Thankfully, she's one of the best listeners I know and openly allowed this verbal monolog to take place in a busy restaurant on a Saturday night. I told her that I had finally come to a place where I realized that if I wanted to spend time with someone, I wanted it to be with people I enjoy. I do not need companionship just to share the same air with someone. If I spend time with someone, it's because I genuinely want to spend time with them. I told her that if no one is available that I would enjoy spending time with that I would just rather be alone. I would rather spend a Friday or Saturday night alone in my room, binging on criminal documentaries than to use someone for their time just so I do not have to be alone. I have finally come to a place in my life where time alone can be just as enjoyable as spending time with another person.

At the end of my rambling, I looked up at my friend and said, "I guess this is what it feels like to be healthy."

To be mentally and emotionally healthy, that is what I have been working so hard for and it felt good to realize that I'm finally there. It feels good to know that all the hard nights I had to spend alone confessing all the things I never wanted to confess to myself finally paid off.  

It's real. This place of finding beauty in being alone and beauty with time spent with just a handful of people. I never knew it truly existed until now.

Valentine's Day is coming up. This holiday is actually my favorite holiday of the whole year. I've spent the majority of my Valentine's Day without a significant other, so it's become a day of celebrating the love I currently have in my life. As I changed the meaning for myself, it has slowly become a holiday I look forward to celebrating. Whether you find yourself in a relationship with someone or not, I hope you choose to spend this day celebrating love with the people you hold tightly. It doesn't always have to be with candy, flowers, or gifts. Sometimes it's as simple as a text, card, or even a big hug. 

I challenge you, if you are one who dreads this day, to make it about something different this year. If anything, make it a way to remind the ones you love that you love them on this day.

And remember, THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN BEING ALONE.

HAPPY LOVE DAY EVERYONE!

Surrender

The room was packed. You could literally touch the person next to you we were so close. I could feel the heat from the air vents and bodies fill the room. I laid down on my yoga mat to prepare myself for the class. One thing I love about yoga is the mindfulness of the practice. I enjoy being reminded to focus on the tension I feel in my body then giving myself permission to release it. I had been experiencing a large amount of anxiety through out the week and I was ready to sweat the toxin's from my body. As I laid there in wait, a word came to me.

Surrender.

I've been reading about multiple people having a "word" for the year. You pick a word and that word is your goal for the year. You spend the whole year learning how to apply that particular word into your life.

I've read multiple post and blogs about people's "word" for the year. I've admired many words, thought about adopting a few for a myself. As each word brought a moment of inspiration into my moment, they never had enough 'stick' to them to stay with me. I'd eventually move on and be inspired by someone else's story.

The class hadn't even started yet. People were still talking amongst themselves. The instructor was working on moving people closer together to fit the last few who wanted to squeeze in at the last minute. The music hadn't started, I hadn't even noticed the clinching in my jaw when the word came rushing over me.

Surrender.

I'll never forget the moment I decided to be a counselor. I was 16 years old and I was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist office. I had just begun driving and I had brought my brother to the dentist. As I sat waiting for him to come out, a woman in the waiting room began to talk to me. She was probably in her early 30's. She started off with small talk but the next thing I knew she was telling me about her life. She began telling me about how her and her husband were going through a divorce. She had kids, younger than me at the time, and that's who she was concerned with the most. She was worried about them as they went through this difficult change. I remember just listening to her. I took in each word she said. I know I told her about what it was like for me having my parents divorce when I was younger and I remember telling her some things that my parents did to help make the transition easier. I'll never forget the relief I saw on her face afterwards and the pure gratitude in her voice when she said, "Thank you for listening."

I was only 16 at the time but I knew, I knew with everything in me that I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. I wanted to listen to people's problems and give them a glimpse of hope through it all. I realized that I had been doing this most of my life anyways. I've always joked saying I had a neon flashing sign over my head, encouraging people to tell me their life story. The sign has never bothered me. I love hearing people's stories, still.

I'll never forget that moment. I'll never forget because that moment set a goal for me. From that point on I was going to become a counselor and I was going to do whatever I needed to do to make it happen. I made plans for school. I chose my undergraduate degree solely based on being able to use it to get my masters degree. I remember walking into my school counseling office in high school and seeing a flier for Lee University's counseling program. I knew that when I finished my undergraduate degree that I would apply there for my masters degree. Sure enough, my last semester in undergraduate school, I applied into Lee and got accepted into their counseling program.

I had a few changes along the way, but ultimately I knew what I wanted and I worked to achieve it. 9 years later, after the 'ah ha' moment I had in the dentist office, I walked across a stage and received the degree I had worked so hard for.

I didn't realize, until now, how uncommon it is to have something like that happen. To be so assured in a dream that you work until it's accomplished. I had no idea that not all dreams come that easily and that not everything can be achieved with hard work.

I still love what I do. I wake up everyday wanting to go to work. I come home every night drained of all energy and then I wake up the next day ready to do it again. My dream is still real and I'm happy to live it each day.

But now the question that has been running through my mind since I walked across the stage, "What's next, Emily? What are we going to work for now?"

My name actually means, "industrious; hard working", and I live it to the fullest. Hard work has never scared me. Pouring energy and time into people or tasks has never once had me running for the hills. I'm a servant and doer at heart and it makes me happy to work for something, especially something good.

As I work to try to find something to work for, I've been coming up empty. As much as I love my job and being a counselor, I've learned that this is only a fraction of who I am. There is so much more to me that has been waiting for me to discover. I've learned this and have been trying more intentionally to take time to discover the other parts of myself. To dig deeper into this heart of mine and see what all has been neglected for years.

This hasn't been as easy as it sounds. Being the goal/ task oriented person that I am, I find myself looking for the next big drive, the next big motivation to have me rolling again. I keep searching for the next big dream that I can work on achieving. Through all the digging, I have yet to find anything that is worth building or focusing on as intently as I did when I was in school. I haven't had a new clear direction chiseled out before me as it once had for me in that dentist office.

This is why I have become anxious. The more I dig, the more I'm coming to find that planning and control are only an illusion. You cannot fully plan your life out. You can never truly control what will come. We live in a chaotic world, filled with surprises and we are only cheating ourselves when we choose to believe that we can some how control what comes, goes, and stays.

Surrender.

It came to me on a yoga mat. Surrender your planning, Emily. Surrender your control. They have only been an illusion this whole time anyway.

Surrender clung to my heart in that moment and all worries and anxieties fled. It wasn't even warm enough in the room to break a sweat and I already felt as if I had lost 10 pounds.

I'm choosing to surrender this year to a God who loves me and wants nothing but good things for me. I'm choosing to allow my year to be filled with all the surprises, the good and the bad ones. They are coming anyways, there is not enough planning, worrying, or control that can stop the inevitable.

Here's a year to learning to surrender and trusting that more joy and peace can be found in the midst of this chaotic life.

Street Lights

Two street lights shine in one of my windows in my room. I'm not a fan of these lights, for at night when I want my room to be pitch black, they always shine just enough light into my room to annoy me. I've put art canvas's into my window, blinds, and hung a thin curtain to help dim the orange lit street lights.

Tonight, for the first time since I moved into this home, I'm happy the street lights are there. I'm happy because without their light tonight I would not be able to see the little baby snow flakes begin to fall from the sky. I pull the thin white curtain back, I pull up the blinds, and I pull the canvas's from the window.

Snow flakes are so graceful. They are unlike rain that races as fast as they can from the sky. Snow flakes take their time. They dance with the air, floating gracefully to the ground, knowing that once they hit everything could change.

There is something hopeful when you see snow. Living in the south when the temperature's change in the blink of an eye, snow can feel near impossible. You begin to believe that it's never coming, that the talk of snow, the blue on the radar, are only a tease. You begin to believe that soon enough, the clouds will pass, without a speck of a snow flake, and you're once again left in the cold, wet winter.

Believing in the impossible. It's not as easy as it once was. There was a time when believing the impossible was as easy as believing school would be canceled the next day when you woke due to snow. There was a time when bad news only came in fairy tales and light could scare all monsters from underneath your bed.

As the years pack on, you find out that bad news live outside of books and the safest place is with the imaginary monsters under your bed. Hope becomes harder to grasp and the impossible begins to live up to it's definition.

I turned out all the lights in my room because I want those annoying orange street lights to shine tonight. I want them to shine so that I can see the little flakes fall from the sky. As hard as life gets and as the bad news continues (as it always will in this life) to pour into our lives, I never want to lose hope. I never, not for a single minute, ever want to stop believing that good exist, that the impossible can become possible.

The snow has stopped now. It might begin again, it might not. All I know is that I'm thankful for it's brief presence. I'm thankful for the little peace it brought into my heart tonight.

Life is full. It is so full. I can't stop believing in the good. I won't let myself stop believing.

2015, I don't hate you.

The year is coming to an end and my favorite thing to do at this time of year is to reflect.

I'm not going to lie, one of my favorite things in the world is to get lost in my head. I love getting away from people and just diving into my little world in my head. It's a very happy world. So as the year ends, I dive into my world of memories and reflect on what I have learned and what I want to take with me into the next year.

Here are my lessons from 2015:

Stop planning your life.
That's been the biggest lesson of this year. STOP TRYING TO PLAN OUT YOUR LIFE. First off, I'm terrible at it. Sometimes I just want an idea to chase after, a goal, something to strive for. But this is RIDICULOUSLY boring for me. I've tried setting up weekly routines for myself. You know, go to work, exorcise on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work, cook dinner every Monday night, etc. But what I have found is this, I will accomplish set routine for one week, pat myself on the back for it, then try to repeat it again the next week. Then the next week comes, Tuesday arrives and I find more excitement with not doing as I had planned than actually doing what I had planned. This continues to happen. No matter what I try to set up for myself through out the week, I end up jumping at any spur of the moment opportunity (and finding more joy in the unplanned aspect) rather than sticking with my plan.

Not only do I like to randomly change my plans, but if I have a set plan that I'm satisfied with and something out of my control comes in and changes the plans MY HEART BREAKS INTO A MILLION PIECES. Even though I know that I would have ended up changing what I had in mind at the last minute, when the universe dives in and messes with my plans, I am heart broken and can struggle to take in the new turn of events. (Example: I had a to buy a new car this year.Wasn't planning on it, but I had no other choice. I'm just now getting to the point where I'm enjoying the car and not grieving over the fact that I have a car payment).

Always choose to cheer for people's good, even if that means you're not involved.
When you choose to want good for people, you find yourself feeling free. You find yourself not allowing control into relationships and when control is gone, true love finds its way to the surface. The hardest part about this is that sometimes you can't be there to watch the good happen. You can't be the person on the other side of the table getting to watch and experience play by play moments of a persons change. It's not that you're a bad person, it's just that people build more solid foundations on their own. If you love people, you won't put yourself in a position where their happiness depends on you. That's not true love. True love is praying for the best for them. It's praying and hoping they find all the happiness this world has to offer. It's hoping that one day, when they are happy, you will be able to join them in the happiness that they were able to build for themselves.

Listen to your intuition and dreams.
This has been the biggest, eye opening, change of the year. I have had multiple incidents where I just knew what I needed to do (without rhyme nor reason) and in the midst of the insanity, it turned out that my intuition led me in the right direction. I've also had dreams about certain people and they have ironically came true in some form or fashion. Learning to trust my intuition has helped me so much this year.

Do something that scares the hell out of you.
My biggest scare moment was taking a trip across the country by myself. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what it would feel like to be completely dependent on my own wit and knowledge in a city I knew nothing about. Yet, this is the biggest highlight of the year for me. You learn so much about yourself when you give yourself the opportunity to step outside yourself.

Write all the letters you want.
I love writing letters. It's my favorite. Sometimes I just want to talk with certain people about certain things that are really deep and for whatever reason, I enjoy doing this in the form of letters. I actually have a file saved on my computer that are just letters to people. Some I have sent, others I have not. I realized that I process better by writing letters, by saying all the things that are hard for me to say in person. So I'm going to keep writing letters and always give myself the choice to keep them or send them.

Tell and show people you love them.
I'm a feeler. I feel ALL emotions intensely. Most feelers hate that they feel so much, but I honestly don't hate it. It's probably my favorite part of myself, yet it's the part I keep hidden. I realized that I have the hardest time fully expressing to people how I feel about them. Sometimes I just want to go and give people the biggest hug as a way to pour all the love I feel into them, yet I hold back more than I follow through. I'm an affectionate person and it's something I've hidden for so long. I'm learning to not be so afraid to show people how much I love them.

Stop hiding. PERIOD.
Not only do I hide emotions, but I just hide a lot about myself in general. I cannot tell you how many times I found myself in a conversation where I kept my true thoughts to myself. I have a thick layer that I wear outside that I show to people. I'm comfortable showing this layer, so I wear it freely. Yet, I have a whole other part of my that I like to hide, even from my closest friends. This layer isn't meant to be on the surface, we all have part that we only share with a select few, but I have come to learn that I even hide this part from the people who I know love me. It's not that I have this deep dark secret that I don't want anyone to know, it's just that I carry more meaning to life than I want to admit most of the time. I'm slowly learning to let the people I know I can trust in and not weigh the worth of what is inside of me based on their reaction or views.

You don't always need a hand to hold.
I'm a friend addict. I have many friends and I love surrounding myself with my friends. This year has taught me that I do not alway need a friend to be there in every aspect of my life. I do not need attention constantly from people. In fact, I've learn to enjoy time alone rather than trying to make sure someone is always with me. I have found more joy and comfort in not being stimulated by people constantly. It's a beautiful place when you find yourself wanting to be around people rather than needing to be around them.

As the title of this blog states, I really don't hate 2015. It's actually going down as one of the good years for me. I've continued to find healing from the pains of 2014. I'm learning to hold onto the hope that things are only going to get better.

Thank you, 2015. You have a special place in my heart.

Thankful

It's Sunday night. It's the end of a long much needed break.

I'm lying in bed with just a few lights lit that hang on the wall behind my bed. I can hear the trickling of rain drops just outside my window. There are owls hooting. Actually owls hooting outside my window right now. The smell of our newly cut Frazier Fern is already dominating the fragrance of each room in this little home.

As I went through my nightly routine, I already found my mind wandering into all the small crevices in my mind. These little crevices are the dark holes in my life that do not have an answer just yet. Some will have answers eventually, some I may never have the answer. My mind is like a constant game of frogger, just trying to make it to the other side of the road just to try and cross another busy intersection. It's constantly wandering, constantly searching for answers.

My mind wandered back to the holiday weekend. I thought about how everyone was talking about all the things they are thankful for. How it is the one time of year we try to focus on what we have and less about what we want.

I'm beginning to realize how easy it is to say what you're thankful for yet, to feel thankful is another story. Feeling thankful is the hardest in my opinion. It's one thing to say something but it's a whole other thing to say it and mean it.

I receive many compliments about my positive attitude and how I have this ability to put a positive twist to just about anything. It's an ability I have developed due to a few reasons. One reason: I hate how speaking negative makes me feel. Allowing hate and negativity outside of my mouth does absolutely nothing for me. I don't feel better afterwards, I tend to feel worse. Second reason: I speak positive because I don't always feel positive. I found that when I feel negative and speak negatively, well, I usually continue to feel negative. But when I speak positively, I don't always feel positive afterwards, but sometimes I do. Sometimes I feel better when I look at the bright side of a situation.

I find myself more and more focusing on what I don't have rather than what I do have. I get so caught up in my mind sometimes that I forget that I'm right where I need to be at this moment in my life. That good will continue to flow in and all I have to do is wait for it. I DO have much to be thankful for. I DO have a life worth singing praises over, yet my heart just doesn't always want to dance with that tune. It doesn't always want to believe that my life, as of this very moment, is enough.

So I have to continue to find ways to express my gratitude for what is laid before me. I have to find ways to do this daily, not just during Thanksgiving. We are all given one life to live and I don't want to get to the end of it and realize that I spent the majority of my life worrying about what the end would look like.

Brave.

About 2 summers ago, I was going through a really tough phase in my life. I would find myself waking up in the morning not wanting to get out of bed. 

Now, I'm not a morning person so I truly never want to get out of bed in the morning, but this feeling of not wanting to get out of bed was different from my normal "anti-morning" attitude. This feeling was heavy on me and I literally did not want to face the day. Some days I had the privilege of not having to, so I would allow myself in the morning to let the heaviness take over and pray it would pass. It always did within an hour or 2. I would finally find a way to get out of the bed and face the day.

The heaviness (that's the only way I know how to describe it) would sometimes hit me in the middle of the day. I remember one day in particular when I was babysitting that it hit me. The little girl I watch was 4 at the time and despite the joy and energy that rushes out of her constantly, I was struggling to keep my head above water for the day. 

I'll never forget one day in particular. I had taken her to the park or museum that day and she was able to entertain herself for the most part by making friends with other kids. I remember being grateful because I barely had the mental energy to engage her most of the day. We had come back to her house and she wanted to play with my hair. Again, I was thankful for this small act because it gave me a moment of calmness to help give me the strength I needed for the rest of the day.

We sat on her bed and she began to twist my hair, trying to braid it. We sat in silence for a while, I felt the heaviness on my chest. The little 4 year old, randomly, breaks the silence and says, "Be brave. Just like Sara Bareilles says. Say what you want to say and be brave."

She then continued to play with my hair and quickly jumped into the next thing she wanted to do.

It's funny how God can use the innocence of a child's favorite song to tell you exactly what you need to hear.

Be brave.

That little pep talk actually got me through the day. It got me through some dark days, the thought that bravery was needed to overcome the emotional hurdles I was having to face. Bravery was needed to face truths I had buried deep inside of me and to accept them as my life boat, not my demise.

I started reading Elizabeth Gilbert's new book "Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear". I wasn't 10 pages in before she resurfaced the word 'brave' for me. She speaks of a poet by the name of Jack Gilbert and she writes an excerpt of what his students had to say he taught them.

"...he asked his students to be brave. Without bravery, he instructed, they would never be able to realize the vaulting scope of their own capacities. Without bravery, they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, their lives would remain small- far smaller than they probably wanted their lives to be."

It took God and bravery to get me through that summer. I'll never forget the feeling of myself coming back to the surface. I'll never forget the vibrations of the laughs that helped the feelings come back to life. What I felt was only been a small taste of depression but it was enough for me to never want to feel it again, and to empathize more with people who struggle with it.

To be brave is a characteristic we forget to encourage people to be. It often goes under looked and neglected, yet it's the very thing we need to be ourselves. You truly can't live in the skin you're meant to live in without it. You can't live the life you have always longed for without stepping onto the edge of bravery and leaping into the unknown. It takes bravery to change. It takes bravery to walk away. It takes bravery to risk everything to live the life you have always imagined.

I'm already pumped about this book. Creativity lives within me but it's the one thing I'm the most insecure about. 

It takes a mountain of bravery to write these blogs sometimes. It takes a lot of encouragement from multiple people for me to step outside the box as my practice as a counselor. My fear with being creative can paralyze me at times, but it's apart of who I am and it would be a shame to neglect any part of myself.

Bravery resurfaced tonight. It came back, reminding me that I need to to move forward, I need it in order to grow as a person.

So I leave you with the same quote that Jack Gilbert left for one of his students, " Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES."