The Hidden Power of Inner Courage | Ep 359

The Hidden Power of Inner Courage | Ep 359

When life snaps without warning, the question isn’t “why me?” so much as “what now?” We share a raw look at sudden loss, the quiet realities of grief, and the surprising moment a friend named what was already there: inner strength. From that spark, we trace how courage actually works—how it hides in ordinary choices, shows up when no one is watching, and grows when you stack small wins instead of chasing perfect days.

We open up about a family story that reshaped priorities overnight and how hearing “you have inner courage” reframed identity. That simple recognition changed behavior: you start to act like someone who can carry weight. We connect this to faith and purpose—seeing God’s will and a sense of calling as anchors through uncertainty—and we outline practical, mental health habits that make resilience repeatable. Think sleep you protect, boundaries you keep, journaling that tracks progress, and movement that resets your stress. No buzzwords, just tools you can use today.

You’ll also hear why trying something different isn’t quitting—it’s strategy. When the same approach keeps failing, change the route, not the destination. We share how to shrink goals to the smallest next step, invite community support, and notice the wins you’ve been overlooking. One quiz you passed, one conversation you handled with grace, one walk you chose over a spiral—each is proof that you’re moving forward. The throughline is simple and strong: you already have inner courage. Name it, use it, and become a light for someone else who needs to see the path.

If this message hits home, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Your small action might be the nudge that keeps someone going.

Chapter Markers

0:02 Welcome And Mission Of The Show

1:31 Defining Inner Strength In Real Life

2:36 A Family Loss And Its Shock

3:44 A Friend Names The Courage

5:22 Recognizing Strength In Ourselves

7:12 Keep Going Despite Naysayers 

10:04 Faith, Purpose, And Perseverance

12:35 Mental Health As The Foundation

15:17 Break Patterns And Try Different

18:00 Count Small Wins And Build

21:05 Community Support And Gratitude

25:17 Be The Light And Lead Forward

#InnerCourage #CourageToChange #FindYourStrength #BeBrave #EmpowerYourself #OvercomingFear #PersonalGrowthJourney #FaceYourFears #SelfConfidenceBoost #MindsetTransformation #InnerStrengthMatters #CourageousLiving #UnleashPotential #MotivationalJourney #InspirationDaily #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices359

Chapters

• 0:02 Welcome And Mission Of The Show
• 1:31 Defining Inner Strength In Real Life
• 2:36 A Family Loss And Its Shock
• 3:44 A Friend Names The Courage
• 5:22 Recognizing Strength In Ourselves
• 7:12 Keep Going Despite Naysayers
• 10:04 Faith, Purpose, And Perseverance
• 12:35 Mental Health As The Foundation
• 15:17 Break Patterns And Try Different
• 18:00 Count Small Wins And Build
• 21:05 Community Support And Gratitude
• 25:17 Be The Light And Lead Forward

Transcript

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, we are grateful. Uh, whether you're watching, listening, uh, whether you're here in the United States or across the world, we welcome uh one and all, and we want to uh say God bless everyone across the world, and we are uh very humbled that we're able to uh come to you in a variety of ways, uh whether it's the TV version uh on the on YouTube or Rumble or uh the uh many audio platforms, with the easiest being www.voicesforvoices.org/slash podcast. Uh again, that's www.voicesforvoices.org/podcast, and that'll get you for free. All the other versions are free as well, uh, to be able to uh watch uh or listen to uh each and every one of over 355 episodes. And if you could also do us a big favor, smash that subscribe button, give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, share, uh, comment. Uh, those things are gonna help so much in our quest to help at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond, which is a huge goal we have as an organization at Voices for Voices. Um, so let's let's let's hop on in. Let's get started. Inner strength or inner courage. Uh, we're not going to give you know the textbook definition. We're gonna give the real world definition uh as well as uh examples of inner strength, inner courage. And I have to owe this particular episode uh to my mom. Uh she um well, us as a family, as you know, if you've been watching or listening, uh we lost our our our father, uh my dad, uh about over a year ago, uh just by a few months. And so it kind of came out of the blue, didn't kind of come out blue, it it did come out of the blue. One of these turbo cancers where everything's fine, all the checkups are fine, and then all of a sudden, bam, you have stage four small cell cancer. So that unfortunately happened. My father passed away, and my mom's very quiet spoken, and one of uh one of the mentors, one of the friends at at uh the church that her and my dad attended, where uh my sister and brother-in-law got married, where I and my wife got married. Uh one of the uh one of her friends started uh to to meet with her, my mom, maybe one once a month or something like that. And they got to be talking, uh, and uh at some point of the conversation, I don't know if it was the first conversation, the second or third, that doesn't matter. What matters is the friend brought up to my mom how my mom has inner strength, inner courage, and that was related to the passing of my dad that in certain situations it can be very easy to to want to give up, to not want to go on, to feel like every not that everything is against you what's the point you know from my my mom's perspective of you know my husband passed. How how are we how am I going to go on and live independently? And it's a lot what we think about here, voices for voices, of there's there's a lot of times where we can think that we could think, oh this negative this negative um event happens, and then another one, and another one, and another one, and another one. And so it's very easy to fall back in that place of what's the point? What's the point of anything really? And so when that friend of my mom's told her, told my mom that she has a very strong inner strength, inner courage that take a you know event like my father passing, and still want it to go on. There's hard days, really hard days, as I'm sure maybe you've gone through, I've gone through, I think we all have, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, that we we've all gone through hard times. And the easy way is to hit that easy button and say, Oh what do I have to live for now? So I was having a conversation with my mom, and she brought up to me not just the conversation her friend had with her, but she brought up to me how I have inner inner strength, inner courage, a lot of it. Because there's those things we're all going through, as I mentioned. You know, feelings, changes, accusations, whatever that may be. And so when I heard that, I was taken aback because I hadn't thought about life and things like that. It took a conversation for it to even come out, and it doesn't mean that I'm a superhero, or anybody else is a superhero, and we're the only ones that can get through things and have this inner strength. The reason why I'm doing this episode is because I believe that we all have inner strength, inner courage. And sometimes it just takes a lot to dig deep into our hearts, not physically, but to dig deep, and that may help us find what we like to do, what we want to do, and that may jumpstart a career, it may jumpstart merely surviving of getting through such hard, hard times, hard events, the haters, whatever that is, and so when I heard that again, I was taken aback by that. You know, it didn't matter who who said that in the moment it was my mom, it could have been anybody. And when they said we have inner strength to be able to get through to get through life. Life is hard. Once we grow up, like life is it's hard, it it's hard. Decisions we have to make, different events, different experiences that impact us so much. And so by bringing this topic up of inner strength, my wish, my hope is that you realize you have inner strength, inner courage. And to go after what that what those things are that you like. Somebody told you no, you're not that good at something, keep trying. Keep trying. Because that would be one person, ourselves, that we're walking off of that ledge, and we're saying, Yep, my life is worth living. Yes, there's gonna be hurdles and misdirection and zigzags and all kinds of things that are gonna they're gonna come out and and try to derail what what that or those things that we like to do, that we want to do, that we feel it's helping. And again, we want to help ourselves because if we're we're not here, we're not alive, it's gonna be hard to carry that on. But to hear that I have inner strength, that was so definitely encouraging to hear that again. It wasn't something that I was like, oh yeah, I have all this inner courage and inner strength, and nobody else does. That's not the case, we all do. I think it's just recognizing that we do, and go, wow, here are some things I've gone through the last week, last month, the last year. And here I am. I made it, so there's a reason why we're here. We don't always know what that thing or what those things are, but for me, I know it's not my will to be done, it's thy will be done, God's will to be done, and I can't help but think that 355, 356 plus episodes of our show, none of this would happen if God didn't allow that, allow this to happen. There would be all kinds of malfunctions every single time uh that we would go to film, and again, 350 plus episodes were here for a reason, and I like to believe that what I was told about having inner strength, inner courage, that that's the thing that drives me and you forward to go through a hard situation, go through hard times and come out on the other side and say, man, that was not good and then to say I don't know how I made it through, but I did and all this ties back to mental health because to feel that inner strength, we have to have the the mind, the mental health side of our health to say, yeah, this is rough, this is a tough patch, but that does not define me. This is only a point in time, and we will move on. May seem like we won't, may seem like well it's been like this for years. Who's to say it's gonna change? How's it gonna change? Try something different because if it bothers you then maybe see what you can do to help break that mold. How to break that glass ceiling, and that right there, folks, is inner strength, inner courage. You have it, you do. That's why I'm on this show. I'm sharing that I have it, I'm also sharing that you have it as well, that it's not a one person, that only one person in the world gets to experience it, that's not it. We all have mental health, just like we have physical health, and we all have inner strength. So before you give up, before you want to think and say, what's the point? Nothing's gonna change, please, please believe that you like I have inner strength, inner courage, and we're all inspiring other people. It doesn't matter how big or how small the gesture is, we're changing the world, and that starts with us. We're changing the world, we're changing our perspective, we're changing the we have that inner courage, that inner strength. Because very rarely are others going to stop by and want to want to help make things better. Sometimes that happens, but we got to take it upon ourselves and say, if we don't want it, we don't want to move on, we don't want to continue, then it's gonna be really hard for others to believe that that's what we want, and that that's what we're gonna do. So dig down, dig deep. We all have that inner strength. Whether that's an A on a paper or a quiz or a project, even if it's only one, maybe it's a B, maybe it's a C. I don't know. But there's at least one thing in all of our lives, past and present, and now going into the future, there's at least one thing that we've done, that we've experienced, that we've made it through. And ladies and gentlemen, that's all we need. All we need is one thing, one positive, and we can build from there. So you do have inner strength, you do have inner courage. Don't believe the naysayers, don't believe the haters. Believe yourself, believe yourself. All got skeletons in the closet. My closet's huge. Somehow, some way. I'm working through that day by day. Doesn't happen overnight. I was just lucky to have my mom say that I have inner strength, inner courage. I feel it's so important, and so I want to share it with each and every one of you that you do, no matter how how tough, how hard life is at the current moment. There's at least at least a positive. For example, maybe you're able to chew your food and swallow and not have an allergy to to food, to particular foods, something very what we would think of as very small, but right there, that's a win. So we don't have to worry about going to see a doctor or a telehealth visit on different tests to find out what we're allergic to, so that's how that can be a win, and we overlook that. I've overlooked so much, but not anymore, and that's why we keep going, that's why we keep doing episodes, keep doing shows because we are we're changing the world one person at a time. For me, it starts with me, for you, it starts with you, so we are changing the world. Better believe that it's a daunting thought, but we are. We are, we are changing the world. So if you can give us a thumbs up, can you smash that subscribe button for us? Like, follow, share. All those things are free to do, and it helps us continue to help others like you're helping others, and helping others starts with helping ourselves first. So let's celebrate each and every one of our voices, however, that may be. Let's be a voice for us and for others. And till next time, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. We love you all. Thank you for the support. Please pass this on. And be that be that light. When things seem dark, be that be that light, be that beacon of hope. We're all leaders, we all have inner strength. We all all have inner courage. And let that be the message from this particular episode. So we'll see you on the next show. Have a great day. Whether you're watching, listening, here in the United States or across the world. We love each and every one of you. We're all God's children. And we will see you next time. Bye bye for now.