I’m not an overtly adventurous person by nature.
I have a tendency to move slowly. To incubate ideas, imagining their shape and form during months of gestation.
I have a predilection for having things just so.
Yet, I also have a deep desire for new experiences, divine movement, and life outside of the careful confines of the tested and the true.
I have a deep desire to do the things that scare me. To push through my discomfort to find myself again and again in vulnerability. To try, even when I may be uncertain about whether or not it will all work out.
Feeling the Discomfort
I am addicted to the full breadth of my emotions. I love the way that during one day I can feel both spectacular and horrendous, brave and terrified, capable and… not.
For many years, I believed that when I was feeling a negative emotion, I was doing “it” wrong: that I didn’t love myself, that I had failed, that I was untrustworthy, that I was always going to be this broken.
I thought that the objective was happy-shiny-all-the-time. I was setting myself up for failure.
You are never going to be happy or shiny all of the time.
And, sometimes, the things that really light us up also make us want to curl up in the fetal position in our beds and never leave.
Our emotions are trustworthy. Our hearts are trustworthy. And, yet, we are allowed to acknowledge our fear and move forward anyway. This is not the same as ignoring our discomfort. It is holding ourselves tenderly and whispering: I know that you’re afraid. I know it hasn’t always gone so well. I’ve got you now. You can trust me. We are in this together. And if it all goes to shit? We’ll figure it out, together.
Getting Comfortable
You are the master of your small universe. You get to choose how you do things, on what schedule, and by what means.
You get to choose to meet yourself in your own discomfort. You get to choose how to work with yourself, instead of against yourself.
My chest of tricks includes: getting a lot of sleep (as regularly as possible), staying mega hydrated, bottles upon bottles of Rescue Remedy, daily energy work, always having bobby pins on hand, Target tank-tops that pull every look together, my phone (and connection to my favorite music and people, always), and a deep and divine understanding of my highly sensitive needs.
I make space for myself. I carry the things that I need on my body. I cultivate an environment of safety, so that I feel comfortable experimenting and trying new things – even in moments of fear or overwhelm.
Developing a relationship with yourself means that you act squarely out of love for yourself and all of the data that you’ve accumulated about yourself-in-action over the course of your life.
Intuitively, you know when to push and when to be gentle, but you may have forgotten.
Listen to yourself. You know what you need. You know how to care for yourself.
Doing It Anyway
I have big dreams for my life that are much bigger than the small box of my comfort-zone. I want a lot. I want things that my conscious mind deems distinctly dangerous. I want things that my intellect barely believes is possible.
And yet, I am yearning. My heart, my spark, my spirit is alive with the possibility of what could be.
You heart does not lie to you.
Your desires are worth pursuing – even if every muscle in your body is tensed with not knowing.
You do not have to wait until you are “ready.” In fact, I am fairly certain, that I will never be “ready” for my desires. They will always scare me. They will overwhelm me with their beauty. I will feel humble and small in their presence. I will question my deserving, again and again.
But they are my desires. They are the secret language of my spirit. They are my guides home to myself.
I can choose to meet myself squarely in the middle. Comfortably uncomfortable. Honoring my needs with reverence and utmost care.
I can choose to move forward.
I can choose my desires.
I can choose to work with my fear, loving it and tending to it’s peculiarities. I can: make sure I have an aisle seat in the airplane, buy myself the support of an amazing coach, invest in my personal toolbox of self-care tricks, move slowly and really feel my emotions, be unyielding about my sleep schedule, and to make sure I have water around all day long.
YES!!
I was getting UNCOMFY in a meeting which is why I didnt see you when you were here.
but it was really good for me…in an awkward way.
This is a beautifully challenging post. Thank you for sharing these words
What a wonderfully written post. And on a topic that I feel so strongly about. Getting out of your comfort zone. I am a firm believer that so much of your internal success will happen once you step out of that comfort zone. Once you test those comfort levels. It may feel a bit uneasy (or maybe even a lot), but over time, the new action or experience will start to feel comfortable. You will start to grow and feel like this is something you could do on the regular.
And you totally said it: Do NOT wait until you are ready. Because that day may never ever come. So just jump in, and you will find that you were ready for this new thing all along. Your life was just waiting for you to get the guts to make the plunge!
This post resonates so much with me this morning. I recently participated in your Permission Granted workshop and I also recently retreated from it for fear of what I would do. For the last several months, I have been unhappy in my job. It’s a social work job in a non-profit and I have learned a great deal from it, but I believe I’ve outgrown the position. For months, I’ve been exhaustively putting in resumes and cover letters and going on interviews and getting kind, concise denial emails. In addition to the job, I have some unease in my family life which is making everything just a little bit harder to accomplish. For weeks now I’ve been telling myself that I just need to take a leap into the unknown. To trust my instincts and my proven ability from past experience to always get by someway, somehow. Last week, I made a huge (and terrifying) decision to quit my job. My daily 9-5, with health insurance and twice monthly never changing pay. I gave my notice on a Wednesday and by Thursday morning I was a new woman. Filled with tons of feelings, some were fear and anxiety, but most were warmth for doing what was right for me and excitement for the future and setting out to reach my goals. This post just made me feel at home with the idea, that yes, not all the time will my feelings be pleasant, but stepping out of that comfort zone into the unknown is so important in fulfilling dreams. Thank you, Mara!