Finding the Courage.....

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." - Eleanor Roosevelt

First of all, I have to say that this is one of my favorite people in all of American History. I have read her biography and I am proud to say that I share some of her philosophy on life and education.
Today, I was reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ,in a letter to the editor. A mother of 3 sons replied on the Presidential address to school aged children. " I believe in democracy, freedom of speech and diversity. Varied opinions make the world interesting. They broaden our thoughts and deepen our understandings, even if we never agree." "While I understand the parental instinct to protect one's child from harm and hurt, I hope that instead of censorship we each take this opportunity to sit down with our children to teach them to be thinkers and listeners and tell them that with hard work, an education and sheer determination, they too can be president of the United States."
This mother's insight is true wisdom. I believe that we must take courage as Eleanor Roosevelt spoke of and allow these uncomfortable conversations to be developing diving boards to better prepare us: parents, teachers, and leaders of businesses or heads of state, to build the ground work for those tougher conversations that will happen later in a child's life.
I like to call these seemingly smaller conversations "feather beds". What I mean by that is, we lay the ground work and build the relationships so when the harder more painful moments in life happen we are better prepared. We in essence lay a common ground of understanding a "feather bed",so when we disagree or hurt each other the "feather bed catches us and allows us to hit a soft place. The common ground of love and respect.
Its just a thought ,but how do we lay feather beds in our own relationships?