We’ve all seen the illustration, the circle of comfort and the arrow of growth well outside and it’s likely we all know it to be real based on our own experiences. Growth is uncomfortable.
However, this doesn’t make it any easier – I haven’t yet achieved Master status of being excited about discomfort even though I’m aware of all the possibilities it can and will ultimately bring for me.
I used to always prefer the Before and After photos, how the story ends, the high level demonstration of a growth experience. I didn’t need to see the how thanks, I get the picture. What journey? It’s all destination, baby! Just get through, don’t feel too much, skip if you must but reach that goal.
Our minds want to keep us small and safe. Everything known is good and everything unknown is not good. We also have many limiting beliefs about ourselves, conscious and unconscious. Shaped by our own thinking, our social and cultural norming and even loving friends and family. We do not know our own potential, we do not really know all that we are capable of and even at our most inspired our imagination can only take us so far. Simply put, despite everything we still inadvertently constrain ourselves and stay smaller than we really are.
It has been my regular and consistent meditation practice that slowly but surely shifted me out of the destination addiction. It has helped me to pause, to feel and to truly appreciate and at times enjoy the ride I’m on. I haven’t fully stopped looking ahead but I am not rushing through, I know that the moments are what count and that growth comes from a catalyst.
Discomfort forces our hand, it pushes, it pulls, it yanks, it slices, it moves us, opens us up and takes us to places we’ve never dreamed about – way beyond our own limited way of seeing and then being.
Life is uncomfortable, it stretches us out. Sometimes they’re small little niggles and other times they’re big and painful. Without fail though, we are changed, transformed, growing in to ourselves, our most truest self – and for that, our growing pains are worth it.
Extra love,
Jo x