Hello! Today's Mindful Monday is about the growth and possibility that comes with choosing to become comfortable with appropriate discomfort.
I totally have my girl Brooke Castillo to thank for introducing me to this revolutionary concept and I'm THRILLED to pass it along to you. At the end of today's note, please enjoy the link to her podcast on this very topic. It will rock your world.
To understand this topic, we need to recall the concept of our primal self (the ancient part of our brains), that likes to kick up tantrums whenever we dare to dream a new dream or take a new risk in pursuing the life we want.
It goes like this: we decide we want to try something new. We make a plan and go after it. Somewhere between deciding we're going to do it and actually doing it, all these icky feelings riiiiiiiiise to the surface. As a result, we are often tempted to stall, quit, make up excuses, feel overwhelmed, go into analysis paralysis, etc.
The evolving part of your brain DREAMS A DREAM.
The ancient part of your brain, SQUASHES THAT DREAM by making you feel like it is 'too hard', 'too stressful', 'too impossible', 'failure would be too embarassing', etc.
You get the picture.
But as Brooke will explain in the podcast, our ancient brains are wired to:
1. Seek Comfort
2. Minimize Pain
3. Conserve Energy
This was really helpful when we lived in caves and sabretooth tigers were on the prowl ... but not so much in this reality 😉
SO! Whats an evolving, empowered being to do when new dreams capture their interest and beg to be pursued?
WE GET COMFORTABLE WITH APPROPRIATE DISCOMFORT.
We expect those icky feelings and we come up with a plan for how we are going to allow space for them and then move through & past them.
I can't tell you how many big dreams I've gone after over the last couple years that (predictably) stirred up all those icky feelings. And prior to this knowledge, I would have concluded achieving that dream was 'too stressful', 'too impossible' or that 'failure would be too embarassing'.
But now, I get ready for the discomfort that is coming and I choose to be comfortable in it.
I am so pleased to share with you, that just the simple act of anticipating this kind of discomfort makes it so much less powerful and actually, meaningful.
It means I am choosing to grow and evolve. YES PLEASE!
Brooke does a phenomenal job of expanding on this topic and offering some really valuable tools to motivate you to react differently, the next time you feel this kind of discomfort coming on. I wholeheartedly invite you to listen to THIS PODCAST. I hope it encourages and emboldens you like it did for me ♥︎