Discover Discomfort
If you’ve ever worked on raising your awareness of your habits, your self talk, your emotions, or really any area of yourself, you understand how difficult it can be in the beginning. It can be very scary when you choose another area of yourself that you want to discover, experience, nurture, and possibly improve. Fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty, fear of opening yourself up and being let down. Fear of the hard work that might be involved as you discover more about yourself and make the changes that you know need to be made.
When you work on improving yourself, whether it’s nutrition, physical fitness, or mental and emotional health, you are likely to travel some uncomfortable roads on the way there. This might be where you stopped last time. Stopped because you struggled to believe in your strength, or because you had too much going on in other areas, or because you weren’t putting yourself first. But sitting in that discomfort, identifying the emotion you're feeling and facing down your fears can bring so much gratification and validation that you are strong enough to do it.
A great strategy you can implement to discover your emotions:
When an emotion comes through that you’re unsure of, scared of feeling, or just simply wanting to explore, run yourself through these questions:
What emotion am I feeling, or think I’m feeling?
What is the logical reason I might be feeling this?
What would a wise reaction to this feeling be?
Identifying your emotions can be hard work, but can teach you a lot about yourself as you discover WHY you may be feeling certain emotions and learn new and more helpful reactions to those emotions.
Often when you start to feel discomfort with something, your fight or flight response kicks in. Fight or flight is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening. That perception of threat activates the sympathetic nervous system and triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee. The easier response is usually to flee, which can lead to a life of habits that mask the true emotion. Some habit-masking may look like obsessive cleaning, indulging in comfort foods, not eating at all, over-working, exercising, drinking, using drugs, and the list can go on. (Side note: not all habits are unhealthy or life threatening.)
Whether this is your first time discovering some uncomfortable things or you’ve been here before, this can be the time that you break free of that self purgatory you’ve allowed yourself to live in for far too long and fight for yourself. Not all growth will cause discomfort - but often times new feelings and making self-improving changes can be difficult and that’s what may cause the discomfort.
Discover that discomfort and believe in yourself to face the challenge. Take time to experience that discomfort. Become aware of what you might be feeling and believe in yourself to grow through the experience. Remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing. Practice being proud of all that you’ve been, all that you are right here and now, and all that you have yet to become.
“These are the days that must happen to you.”
- Walt Whitman
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Growth can be an uncomfortable process, but it can also be an amazing experience once you allow yourself to endure it. You are absolutely strong enough to go through it. And even more than that, you are worth it! Discover all that you are capable of and remind yourself every single day that YOU ARE WORTH IT!
“Change happens when you extend your reach. Your comfort zone is your enemy. As long as you play is safe, you will never become all that you are destined to be.” - Germany Kent
