What does love have to do with action?

When I first heard someone associate the heart and love with action and doing, while something about it resonated, it didn't feel very intuitive to me. But when I thought of the connecting link being courage it started to make more sense. It takes courage to act, especially outside of our comfort zone, where courage isn’t necessarily the absence of fear, but the willingness to face it and go forward anyways, thus conquering it. And then there’s the idioms of “lion-hearted” or having the “heart of a lion", which means to have the courage of a lion, a courageous heart.

What’s interesting is how the heart is also associated with love, which made me explore the connection between love and courage. It doesn’t seem to be commonly taught, at least not explicitly. I think about years ago when someone told me the opposite of love isn’t hate, but fear, while the opposite of hate is more like attraction or admiration. Fear is contraction, love is expansion. Courage is the ability to face fear and go forth, and although courage isn’t exactly the opposite of fear, maybe it takes love to be courageous and face and conquer fear.

It’s also kind of funny to think that the Tin Man and the Lion in the Wizard of Oz were redundant. Maybe Dorothy needed only two friends - the scarecrow and the lion. Since the heart is what the lion needs to have the courage.