Tag: wisdom
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The Hidden Reasons You’re Stuck (And What to Do When Conventional Advice Fails)
“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” ~M. Scott Peck
Have you ever been in a situation or a stage in your life where you’ve felt physically stuck, as if you’ve fallen into some kind of invisible quicksand that you can’t get out of?
Or maybe it’s felt more like you have a thick, invisible elastic band around your waist, and no matter how hard you push forward, it pulls against you, holding you in place? Or maybe it’s like a sky-high brick wall that you can’t find your way through, around, or over?
Getting stuck in life can feel frustrating, annoying, upsetting, and confusing. And if you’ve been stuck for too long or at a time when you really need to move forward, you’ve probably found yourself panicking and feeling afraid because if you don’t take action, it may seem like your life will collapse—that you may end up financially destitute, homeless, alone, or a failure.
The Place Where You Are Stuck is Your Growing Edge
Everyone gets stuck at times. It tends to occur when you arrive on the threshold of a new direction, taking a risk, doing something new, or needing to leave something behind and launch yourself into the unknown.
I’ve been stuck many times in my life, sometimes briefly and sometimes for longer periods when I’ve had to accept that I needed to make big changes to my life and along with them, make choices and difficult decisions or learn something deeply and powerfully.
This place where you are stuck is your growing edge. It is the threshold between the known and the unknown, who you are and who you’re becoming.
Sometimes you might have no idea why you’re stuck, only that you can’t move forward. It’s a place that you may consciously or unconsciously try to escape by either avoiding your stuckness or trying to get over your edge and out of the discomfort too quickly.
Sometimes we get stuck unnecessarily for way too long because we keep hitting the edge and avoiding it or keep applying strategies to get unstuck that don’t address the real cause.
We often think of getting stuck as a problem to solve, but in my experience, it usually holds a bounty of insight, gifts, power to reclaim, and healing. It can even serve the unfolding of your life by keeping you aligned with your destiny and soul’s callings (or greater purpose, if you don’t believe in those things).
Why Conventional Advice Didn’t Help You Get Unstuck
Much has been written about how to get unstuck, but I’ve found that a lot of the advice is based on unnamed assumptions about the reasons you are stuck.
A common assumption is that it is a mindset issue, so a lot of the advice relates to changing your thoughts and conscious beliefs, cultivating different attitudes and positive mindsets, or using willpower to keep going and find the next step.
If you have followed any of this type of advice but failed to get unstuck, you may feel like something is wrong with you. But I want to lovingly tell you that there isn’t anything wrong with you. The problem is in the solution that simply didn’t address the root of your stuckness.
My Experience of Being Stuck
My most recent bout of stuckness was pretty painful and at times frightening in the context of my life. After pushing hard over several days to write a heap of content for my business, I woke up the next morning feeling depleted, empty, and sad. And I couldn’t write again for weeks.
If I was writing for fun, then maybe I could have just completely surrendered and waited for the words to return, but as a self-employed business owner, writing forms a large part of my work. I write all of my own website, blog, and marketing content. Not being able to write was scary because it put my business at risk.
Initially, I tried all the usual things: surrender, acceptance, movement, doing something fun, positive self-talk and encouragement, believing in myself, and looking for the next small step I could take. While these things were helpful, especially in terms of alleviating stress, they didn’t help me get unstuck because when I came back to writing, I was still blocked.
The Real Reasons I Was Stuck and How I Discovered Them
When the usual things didn’t help me get unstuck, I sat down with my journal to start inquiring in a loving, gentle way about was happening in my experience and inside me.
To begin, I did some slow, deep belly breathing with one hand on my heart and the other on my belly. This is a polyvagal breathing exercise that helps to bring your nervous system into a state of relaxation and increases your sense of safety.
Then I sat with my experience of stuckness and the uncomfortable feelings that arose and noticed what was happening inside me. A conversation with my body and soul unfolded that continued on and off over many days.
This is what I discovered about why I was stuck.
1. I had become too immersed in masculine energy in my approach to my writing: linear, direct, and factual.
I had made it a problem to be solved, a task to be completed. While I cared about writing well and my audience, I had disconnected from the deeper voice within me that held the poetry, beauty, and wisdom of what I truly wanted to say. I call this my soul voice. Essentially, I was trying to write from my head and not my heart.
2. I was trying to write what I thought others wanted to know or read, in a way I thought I should do it, which wasn’t congruent with what my soul wanted to express through me.
I believed that I had to write in a certain way to connect with people and be liked rather than just write as myself. I was trying to people-please, which is an old trauma response.
3. Different parts of me were in conflict, and their conflict needed to be listened to and resolved.
My sensitive parts didn’t like my overly practical approach to writing and were actively pushing against the “let’s get on with it” part that was trying to get it done. You could think of it like my heart pushing back against my head in opposition, saying “this isn’t the way to proceed.”
4. Less obvious was an inner critic that redirected me to write from my head.
Its voice was quiet, blended in my thoughts. It was trying to stop me from writing as my true self to protect me from the risk of criticism that a young innocent part of me would find devastating—an old trauma.
Once I recognized and sat with all of my insights about why I was stuck, I was able to hear my deeper self and find my way back into writing by listening to what my heart and soul wanted to express, while reassuring my anxious parts.
I shared little chunks of writing on social media that I felt inspired to share, not because I thought I should or wanted to please anyone but myself. This trickle eventually found its way to become a greater river. My writer’s block ceased. My stuckness was gone.
The Hidden Reasons You’re Stuck
The reason you’re stuck is not necessarily a result of your mindset, attitude, or willpower, or solely because of your beliefs. The reasons you are stuck are deeper than that.
They’re often hidden, obscure, or unobvious because they’re hanging out in your unconscious where you haven’t looked or been able to see them. They can be entangled and intertwined.
We get stuck because of deep inner conflicts between parts of ourselves that we aren’t aware of or listening to, limiting beliefs created and held by young parts of ourselves, and trauma that has been protectively pushed down but may surface.
We get stuck when we try to ignore or avoid difficult feelings, or when we’re scared of going for the thing that we want or need to do that our nervous system perceives as dangerous, sending us into a fight, flight, freeze or even fawn response to try and make unworkable situations work.
Your conscious mind might think you want what you say you want, but unconscious parts of you say no.
You might have inner critical figures meanly berating you or quietly discouraging you in a way that seems helpful or loving but isn’t. You might not have enough inner or outer allies to help you take the step you want to take or cultivate the skills you need to cultivate.
You can also get stuck when the thing you’re trying to do isn’t aligned with your destiny or soul’s calling and your stuckness is a symptom of higher intervention.
How to Find the Hidden Reasons You’re Stuck
1. Offer yourself love and compassion, coupled with gentle curiosity about your stuckness.
This will help your body relax and feel safe. You won’t discover what you are looking for by being forceful or unfeeling toward yourself.
2. Befriend it.
Before you can get out of your stuckness you must be willing to be with it and relate to it. Even if you try to detour your way around it or avoid it, the lessons that lie within it will appear again at another time in your life because you’re here to learn and grow.
Life lessons we need to learn repeat. What you learn will serve you for the rest of your life.
3. If you feel stressed and anxious about your situation, try some polyvagal breathing exercises to bring your nervous system into a state of rest and digest so you’ll feel safer.
It’s hard to think and see clearly if your body is very activated or stressed or even in a freeze or shutdown.
4. Find time to consciously hang out with your stuckness, breathe with it, and if you are able to, tune into your body.
Ask, listen, and see what bubbles up and what you notice is going on beneath the surface. For me, meditation and journaling worked, but they’re not for everyone. Maybe intentional walking, dancing, praying, or talking into your phone is better for you.
Here, you must be kind, gentle, and welcoming. Digging for answers and clues, especially in a forceful or problem-solving way, can make your sensitive inner world and young parts freeze up and not reveal anything because they feel unsafe.
5. Hang out and breathe with your insights so you feel safe.
This can often be enough for your stuckness to unfreeze or for you to form insights about your next step.
Other times you will need to do some work to process emotions, work through inner conflicts and limiting beliefs, and heal your young parts and traumas. You may need therapeutic support for this.
6. If you’ve tried the above and you’re still stuck, seek the help of a therapeutic practitioner or safe, compassionately honest loved one.
We all have blind spots where we can’t see things clearly about ourselves. It’s human nature.
You may have painful experiences kept out of your conscious awareness that need healing.
Sometimes you just need help and a safe space to discover what you can’t see and to be held safely with your experience and what arises.
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How I Embraced Alcohol-Free Living: 4 Things That Made It Easier
“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” ~Abraham Maslow
A few years ago I decided to take a break from alcohol, and I also decided I would probably be lonely, miserable, and boring for the duration of my break.
I’d allowed a lot of social conditioning to affect me, and I was sure people who didn’t drink either had no friends, had hit a drastic rock bottom, or had no fun. I didn’t know if I was going to find happiness or even contentment on the other side of my drinking career, and this worried me.
I began to examine those thoughts and feelings around my drinking and brought my behaviors into a sharper focus. It led me to…
Awareness (of my drinking habits)
I look back and can now clearly see that I was, for a very long time, a gray area drinker.
A gray area drinker is someone who falls into the bracket between never drinking and physical alcohol dependency.
Society tends to view problematic drinking in black and white terms. “You’re an alcoholic and you need to be fixed, or you’re not an alcoholic and are therefore okay.” Well, I think it’s more nuanced than that. There’s a spectrum between the extremes of rock bottom and every now and again drinking, and it’s a long spectrum.
A gray area drinker could be consuming a couple of glasses of wine each evening or could be someone who binge drinks on the weekend or someone who can abstain for a month at a time to prove they haven’t got a problem.
I was capable of any of those behaviors, and, looking back, I fit the description of a gray area drinker very neatly. I wasn’t physically dependent on alcohol, but I might have been emotionally dependent. I used it to help me alter my state of mind into relaxation/fun on a regular basis.
This can be a confusing place to be when you first start to see alcohol for what it is. I’d say, “But I’m not doing anyone any harm. I’m sinking a couple of glasses of wine on the sofa, and then I’m going to bed—what’s the problem with that?”
In the past I moved along the gray scale; different ages, different friendship groups, different jobs, different circumstances, different seasons, and different living arrangements all led to different drinking patterns. Apart from the periods in my life where I was pregnant or breastfeeding, I didn’t ever choose to have a really extended time (more than thirty days) away from alcohol.
Acceptance (that I wanted something different)
I came to realize that the more I moved along the grayscale, the more or less colorful other areas of my life became. If my joy was a rainbow, the vibrancy of that rainbow either faded or shone brightly depending on how much I was drinking.
I stopped myself from making a change around my drinking for a long time because I didn’t want anyone to define me as “having a problem.”
The movies would have you believe that the end of your drinking career needs to be very dramatic, with a family intervention and a massive rock bottom, but this doesn’t need to be the case.
What if you chose for your drinking days to end with a quiet fizzle out instead of a big firework or massive drama? That’s how it was for me.
My gray area drinking changed shades of gray over a couple of years, and by the time I was ready to try my alcohol-free life experiment, I was moderating my drinking and never drinking more than two drinks at one time. However, the shades of gray no longer felt good, and I wanted a full-on technicolor rainbow, and I knew that to get one I had to do away with the other—so I did.
Those gray clouds parted, and one by one all the other areas in my life that had, up until then, been a bit less than joyful started to shine a bit brighter.
Action (taking steps toward what was next)
Once I had made the decision to have a break from alcohol for one year, I took action steps to make it more likely to happen.
I set myself up for success by choosing a time frame I wanted to work toward, educating myself on the harm alcohol does, downloading an app to help me to stay focused, looking for other inspiring people who were already doing what I wanted, and asking for support where I needed it.
I had assumed that once I made the decision to have a break from drinking, it would be easy to execute, but I was surprised to find it wasn’t. I realize now that this is one of the reasons there are so many amazing sober communities out there—we need each other, and we want to look out for those who we can serve.
I used to joke that the early days of sobriety constituted a full-time job because I got very focused on a morning routine that supported my needs, I read more than I ever have, I listened to podcasts, and I used distraction techniques in the early days. But actually it wasn’t a full-time job; it was simply learning a new way of being.
Alignment (and a feeling of contentment or peace)
Now that I don’t drink, I’ve had to face some truths. Some of them have been uncomfortable. Some have become less uncomfortable over time, and some, well, they are still uncomfortable.
Deciding to have an alcohol-free year threw me into a bit of an identity crisis. I was mostly okay about changing my home drinking identity but really struggled with my social identity. Shared boozy experiences were a big part of my life and of who I was, or who I thought I was.
I’ve ended up piecing together a bit of a new identity over time. I’ve reflected not only on who I had been but also on who I wanted to be in the future. I took time to explore what I enjoyed and also consciously began to move away from activities I had stopped enjoying.
I also looked more closely at my relationships. Who did I want to see more of, and who did I need to move away from a bit? Some of the most surprising support came from the least expected places.
I discovered that chaos had been a default position for so long that calmness was too unfamiliar. To start with, I had to move slowly toward the identity that I wanted. I’ve accepted that some friendships have changed and some have stayed the same. I’ve also made new friends since becoming sober and a business owner.
Who am I sober? I’m just someone who chooses not to drink alcohol. I want that to be the least interesting thing about me.
Who am I sober? I am an improved version of myself, more relaxed, more peaceful, more patient, kinder, and more content. These were not words I would have used to describe myself when I was drinking. Internal chaos reigned.
Who am I sober? Well, probably the most surprising thing for me is to find myself working as a coach. I spent twelve years as a youth worker, and a large portion of my time was spent talking to young people about their substance use without ever considering my own. When I had gotten sober and completed my coach trainings and certifications, I couldn’t believe what I had achieved. None of this seemed possible a short time ago.
I recognize now that a large part of the “woohoo, let me lead the charge to the pub/bar/dance floor” part of my personality looked like an extrovert but was indeed an introvert using alcohol as a coping mechanism in situations where I didn’t feel comfortable.
I’m really happy to lay claim to my more introvert nature now—let me have all the fun, but please can it be in pairs or small groups, please can it be in the morning or afternoon, and please can I go home and have a lie-down afterward? Thank you!
If you’re struggling to visualize/think about who the sober version of you might be, then follow good role models to get ideas—read books, listen to podcasts, and take action. If you’re thinking of taking someone’s advice, consider if they are currently where you might like to be. Have they been in a similar place to you now, and have you seen them act with care and kindness toward others they are helping?
Sobriety hasn’t been a ‘one and done’ experience for me; it’s been a process over the last few years, and I’m so grateful to acknowledge that I’m still a work in progress, as I believe we all are.
Bring awareness, acceptance, action, and alignment into focus as you go, and it might just make things a little bit easier for you.
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Are You Outgrowing Your Family? 6 Effective Ways to Manage This
“You can’t force anyone to value, respect, understand, or support you, but you can choose to spend time around people who do.” ~Lori Deschene
I always felt somewhat different from my family growing up.
I didn’t have a terrible childhood—I was certainly loved, cared for, and looked after—but despite having two siblings, a mother, and a stepfather (who raised me), I seldom felt a sense of belonging and often times I felt very lonely.
Growing up I could never quite put my finger on what it was that was different, but I just knew that I was. I knew that I didn’t see the world how my family saw it. I analyzed everything on a much deeper level. I viewed things differently, and a lot of my interests were different than my family.
Late last year, I had just gotten back from a long weekend on a family trip and I was relieved to be home. I found the weekend to be exhausting and couldn’t wait for it to be over. I checked in with a friend and informed him about my weekend.
“It sounds like you’ve outgrown your family.”
I paused while I reflected on this statement. Just a couple of weeks prior I had written an article about outgrowing friendships. It never once crossed my mind that we could outgrow our own family.
I mean, we can’t possibly outgrow our family, right? At best, they are our protectors and providers. They love us unconditionally, flaws and all, and they are our biggest supporters. We are tied and bonded by blood and DNA.
I sat and reflected on this for a few days. If we can outgrow our friends and partners, then we can, too, outgrow our family.
I had worked a lot on myself over the past ten years. I was committed to self-development, and although I was in no way perfect, I actively worked to be the best version of myself and tried to take something away from every difficult situation I was faced with.
This inner work had enabled me to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, while I believed my family were stuck in their ways, ignorant to the fact that as the world around us changes, so should our mindsets.
As I did the inner work, I noticed I disagreed with more things that my family were saying and doing. Decisions they made and behaviors they displayed didn’t sit right with me a lot of the time. I was changing, leading me to drift further away from my family. The connection we once had was tearing at the seams, and I desperately wanted them to ‘catch up.’
The trouble is, outgrowing our families can be complex. For example, when you outgrow your friends, you usually go your separate ways, open and ready to let people into your life who align with who you are at that time. But when this is family, it isn’t always that easy or the right thing to do.
Below are some things you can implement in order to maintain healthy relationships with your loved ones when you have outgrown your family.
1. Stop trying to change people who do not want to be changed.
Whenever I found the courage to disagree with my family, I would spend a significant amount of time trying to reason with them and make them see a different point of view—that things are not always black and white, but there are sometimes grey areas too.
Admittedly, I would often try to encourage personal growth and healing in the hope that they would view the world the way I did, and in the hope that we could connect on the same level we once did. This only created tension, frustration, and conflict.
When I reflected on this, I realized that I had my own views on how I felt my family should behave or act, but not everyone had to think the same way I did. I also realized that I shouldn’t preach and try to push my ways of living on others, and that I didn’t always know best, especially since everyone is on their own journey and path to self-discovery.
Everybody is responsible for themselves; you cannot change anyone if they do not wish to be changed. Perhaps, like mine, your family does not feel that they need to change. If this is the case, then you are fighting a losing battle. You cannot change anyone, and they cannot change you.
2. Do not be afraid to let them know when you do not agree with them.
There were times when I did not agree with my family’s decisions, opinions, or choices, and to keep the peace or to please them I would agree with them, at the detriment of being true to myself.
This always led to me having a deep sense of discomfort when I had to pretend to be on their side of an issue. It always felt like my reality and spirituality were at war with one another, and I was being a traitor to myself.
As I looked back, I realized that this had nothing to do with them and everything to do with me. I didn’t want to disappoint my family by having opposing views and feared how they would react if I voiced my true opinions.
I also feared that I would be rejected, and moreover, I feared that any disagreements would lead to conflict.
Understand that you are your own person. You may share blood and DNA, but you are on your own journey, and you may have morals and values that do not align with your family’s, and this is okay.
While I was fearful of hurting my relationship with my family members by being honest, I also learned that not being honest with them could do just as much damage if they found out how I truly felt.
You are entitled to your own opinions and views, and if your family or friends condemn you for not agreeing with them, then that is their problem and not yours. They should try to understand that our differences make us diverse and unique.
Now, I can confidently and respectfully disagree with my family when I need to, without fear of consequences.
3. Have compassion.
While I have spent a significant amount of time healing from old wounds and past trauma in order to grow, spiritually, emotionally and mentally, not everyone in my family has.
Everyone has their own struggles and battles, and we should not judge or condemn them but be compassionate toward them and their struggles.
4. Establish new boundaries.
Establishing boundaries is a solid foundation for any healthy relationship. When we have boundaries in place, we have a clear understanding of what is expected of one another.
Boundaries have many benefits for our relationships; they are more likely to be respectful, with less conflict and more peace.
Perhaps there are topics that you feel uncomfortable talking about with your family, or behavior that you simply won’t tolerate. Identify your limits and set those boundaries in place so everyone is clear on expectations.
5. Understand “outgrowing” doesn’t mean “better.”
The word “outgrown” gets a bad rap, which is why I have avoided using it with my own family for fear it will make them feel less-than. However, I am not better than my family, nor are they better than me.
Outgrowing family does not mean that your life is now better than theirs, and the way you view the world holds more value than the way they view theirs.
Outgrowing your family simply means that your values, morals, opinions, and views have changed and may be in conflict with one another’s. It means you are no longer in alignment with those you once were.
Something changed, and that something is you (or them), and that’s okay. Change is natural and fundamental to progress in life. When you change, it can change the dynamics in relationships, sometimes for the better and sadly, sometimes for the worse.
6. Learn conflict resolution.
Nobody’s family is perfect; there will always be conflict. But this can be even more common if you feel you have outgrown your family because there may be more disagreements and behavior you can no longer tolerate.
The ability to deal with conflict might just be the saving grace for serious fallouts and family dysfunction. This can include:
- Addressing the issues
- Finding a resolution to the problem
- Agreeing to disagree without animosity
- Using good communication skills; for example, actively listening
- Not ignoring the conflict
7. Distance yourself if needed.
Being family does not have to mean that you are obliged to put up with anything you do not feel comfortable with, toxic behavior, or abuse, so if you need to distance yourself or cut off family members to protect your peace and mental health, you are well within your rights to do that.
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Releasing Fascia: A Simple Way to Reduce Tension, Pain, and Disease
“Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live.” ~Jim Rohn
I hear this happens to so many, but when it happens to you, it’s unsettling. I didn’t know what was going on with me, and I wasn’t getting any satisfying answers either.
Most days were good, and I felt fine and went about my regular routine wearing my many hats: mother of two young kids, human mom to three fur babies, a household-manager-of-all-the-things and full-time dental hygienist. And then out of the blue, it could hit me like a ton of bricks… the backache, neck pain, jaw pain, tension headaches, and even migraines.
I would wake up in the morning with tension or pain in my body, but I had no idea how it got there! Sometimes it was pretty intense too, It would drive me bananas because I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why.
Didn’t do any yard work yesterday. Didn’t hurt myself. Didn’t trip or fall. Didn’t shovel snow the last few days either. It was so strange. I had no idea what was going on.
I remember that the first time it happened, I was about thirteen years old. It was a summer morning, and I wasn’t able to get out of bed to go to my babysitting job. Another time, in my late twenties, my lower back seized as I was bent down shaving my legs, so I dropped to the floor unable to get back up. There were many times like these.
When I had one of those unexplained episodes, I would feel off for a few days and then it would settle. Luckily for me, most days I just felt my regular minimal tension at night. It wasn’t intense, but it was enough for me to notice.
Other times, I’d have migraines or tension headaches that would last for days at a time. It wasn’t fun for anyone, including my young family. I also felt guilty and stressed out with my list of errands getting longer by the minute. I wanted to avoid this at all costs because it would stop me in my tracks when it happened, and everyone around me suffered.
During medical visits I was told I had muscle spasms, tension headaches, or migraines. And was told to relax (right!) or prescribed something for the pain or given a topical cream to rub on the affected area. It helped, but I still didn’t understand why it would happen out of the blue like that.
In my circle, I was hearing things like: “Wait till you hit thirty or forty, that’s when all the problems start!” or “Wait ‘til you’re my age!’ or ‘Welcome to the club!” or my favorite one: “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” To be honest, it was upsetting and depressing to hear that things would get worse as I aged.
Ever have an ultrasound, scan, or MRI only to be told that everything looked normal? That it must be muscular, or even worse, it’s all in your head? It’s a very frustrating diagnostic for most people, as they are left feeling puzzled and still looking for answers. They’re hoping to find anything that could help, to alleviate some of the pain and tension. They’ve done many things, but nothing seems to help…
As it turns out, it’s all about fascia!
What is FA-SH-EE-AH? It is a connective tissue in our body. Picture one continuous piece of a three-dimensional spider web, from head to toe. It’s a semi-opaque membrane, thicker in some areas.
This tissue does not only wrap or divide our organs, muscles, and other body parts, like previously thought, but it actually interconnects every single one of our cells, all 100 trillion of them! Fascia is everywhere! It protects us, it supports surrounding tissues, and communicates with our entire being. It is the only system in the body that connects to every other system in our body.
The magic of our precious fascia doesn’t stop here, as it also has a memory! It records our entire life, but it’s the traumatic events—the physical, repetitive, and emotional stresses (every fall, burn, bruise, surgery, repetitive movement), the viruses (hello, Covid!), and infections… plus unprocessed emotions, negative thoughts, limiting beliefs, and unhealthy habits and behaviors—that affect it the most. From the 3rd trimester in the uterus to our last breath, our fascia keeps track and memorizes everything.
Our beautiful body does have the potential to auto-regulate, and so does our fascia. But we live in a world where productivity is a sport, our to-do lists are never-ending, and our over-scheduling is a badge of honor. This absolutely takes a toll on our body and mind! Therefore, our fascia doesn’t always release like it’s supposed to, and it starts accumulating tensions.
Tight fascia, that is unreleased, clamps down on its surrounding tissues and gets worse with time. Left unreleased, it can get rock hard. Plus, since it’s like a 3D blanket, it starts affecting and pulling other parts of the body… just like when you tug or pull on a corner of a blanket, it pulls on the entire thing. The fascia in our body is the exact same!
This is why the root cause of our symptoms may be coming from a completely different place in our body. And it explains why many therapies don’t work, as they treat the location of the symptom and not the cause.
Bound fascia creates havoc on our health and wellness and has a domino effect on our body and mind. It impacts all our cells (every tissue that makes up the muscles, organs, bones/joints, and all the other systems).
As an example, clamped fascia that is tight around and inside an organ (remember, fascia is in every cell) will affect this organ so much that it won’t be able to function properly.
The pain in your neck that keeps coming back, your tight shoulder blades and digestive issues, could all be from tight fascia from that time when you fell off your bike when you were learning to ride at the age of five years old. Your fascia protected you in the fall, but it’s been tight all this time and is now pulling on your 3D fascia blanket.
The TMJ issues you’ve been experiencing, the acid reflux, and reduced range of motion in your shoulder could be from when you had your appendix removed as a child. With scars, we only see a tiny scar on the skin, but inside, it’s an iceberg of adhesion and it’s pulling constantly!
That nagging hip tension that’s been around for ages, the ringing in your left ear, and your weak bladder could all be from your high-risk pregnancy and stressful delivery. Those babies take up a lot of room, and our tissues should go back to their original place, but sometimes they don’t, and that starts pulling too! Not to mention the impact of all that stress of having a high-risk delivery; this too could very well be the root cause of your issues!
Healthy fascia is the missing piece to health and wellness! A holistic approach is needed to release this complex tissue, which impacts us in so many ways. For optimal health, gentle movements are best to release bound fascia and relax your nervous system, which go hand-in-hand.
If your intention is to release your fascia, you’ll want to avoid anything that is too intense or that jacks it up like HIIT, spinning, and marathons.
Other than body work (osteopathy, energy work, massage), walking, swimming, yoga, and meditation are great options that you can do without an appointment. Every bit counts! Here are some things you can add to your daily routine to keep your fascia happy and pliable:
First, stay hydrated! Drink water throughout the day. The general rule of thumb is to drink your weight in pounds, divided by two. That’s the number of ounces your body requires daily to function properly. Therefore, someone that weighs 200 pounds could benefit from drinking 100 ounces of water per day. Some exceptions apply, but for most people this is a good guideline. Remember, we are mostly water, and that includes our fascia!
Stretching is a must! To stretch a muscle, it takes twenty to thirty seconds, but to stretch and release one layer of our dysfunctional fascia, it can take around three to five minutes, sometimes more.
Yoga is a great fascia therapy, as it’s wonderfully designed around fascia lines; for example, downward dog stretches the posterior line of fascia. Thread the needle pose stretches the arm line. Fish pose stretches the anterior line.
Hatha is the style of yoga that most of us think of when we picture yoga. Downward dog, warrior pose, child’s pose, lotus, to name a few poses, are all great options to try.
In yin yoga, we hold the poses longer, about three to five minutes, which is long enough to release the fascia. That’s when all the magic happens! These poses are gentler. As we hold them, we can feel a little flutter or a soft release somewhere else in the body. It’s all connected!
Another kind of yoga that is great for our fascia health is restorative yoga. This one is a very passive yoga done with many props. It’s all about supporting the body and feeling safe. This creates immense healing, as it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s incredibly powerful and utterly relaxing! So, let’s not discredit this type of yoga because it’s more passive than the others. The benefits are exponential!
EFT/Tapping Meditation is also a great option to release tension in our fascia. As we tap on specific acupressure points on meridians in the body (hint: meridian and fascia lines are in the same places!), we release stored unprocessed emotions, limiting beliefs, and negative thought patterns, which all impact our fascia.
It’s an amazing body-mind release technique! Tapping also activates the vagus nerve, promoting rest and relaxation, which is what we want, as the happiness of your fascia depends on the state of your nervous system, and vise-versa.
Fascia health is a journey, and it’s so worth it! Do yourself a favor and start releasing your fascia today. Caring for it has the best return on investment and undeniably impacts your health and well-being. You totally deserve it, and your future self will thank you!
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4 Things to Try When You Want Change but Don’t Know What to Do
“If you get stuck, draw with a different pen. Change your tools; it may free your thinking.” ~Paul Arden
For a year and a half, I could feel a career shift coming. I had worked hard to cultivate a career I loved, but I began feeling disconnected from my work. The meaning I had originally felt from it was no longer there. Each time I started a new project, I felt tired and unmotivated.
At first, I thought it might be burnout. So I took a few weeks off to see if I could reset myself into feeling excited about my work again. But when I returned, I felt the same. The things that I had built my career around, that previously gave me energy and meaning, no longer resonated.
I thought about the type of work I did daily and couldn’t imagine myself still doing it ten years from now. But what could I imagine myself doing? I had no idea.
I struggled and strived to figure out what a career shift might look like. I read several books, including Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis (Ph. D.), but while I resonated with the ideas in several of them, I still felt no closer to an answer.
I became very intentional about noticing when things gave me energy. At one point, I went to a dinner party where someone brought tarot cards and gave me a reading. It was so energizing! I went home and immediately ordered the same set of tarot cards. I began learning about them and started doing readings with friends and at parties.
“What does this mean? Should I become a tarot card reader?” I thought. But that didn’t resonate for a variety of reasons.
By this point, I was telling everyone who would listen that I was “directionless.” It was a new label I used often. When someone asked what I did for work, I would say, “Meh, I’m directionless.”
Well-meaning friends and acquaintances started offering their opinions of what I should be doing next. I even googled, “How to make a career change.” I felt like I was walking around in a black fog where I could barely make out what was ahead of me. Sometimes I could see a slight shape—a glimmer of something that gave me energy. But what did it mean? And how could I use that information for what was next?
I went through a cross-country move to a location where I had no friends. Because of this, I had more time to myself than usual. I spent each day going inward and connecting to my body through meditation, simple somatic practices, like stimulating my vagus nerve, and parts work.
Finally, I realized that the answer was never in my head. It was in my body—wisdom that had been blocked by all the thoughts and old beliefs that had formed, and parts of me that wanted to protect me and keep me safe.
I found that a part of me didn’t want a career change because it was too scary and unstable. Instead, it wanted to stay with what was known, dependable, and safe. I befriended this part and worked through the fears. As I spent more and more time going inward, the answer appeared clearer and clearer. It had been there all along, and finally, I was able to access it.
If you’re feeling stuck, here are a few things to try.
1. Identify parts that may be trying to tell you something.
If you are feeling stuck, there may be a “part” of you that is keeping you there to protect you. These parts are often created during childhood when we might not have had as many resources as we do now.
For example, maybe you learned during childhood that being seen by others can be unpredictable and dangerous. So a “part” of you could have been created that helped you make decisions based on that information. Now, as an adult, you likely have more resources, but that information never got to the “part” that was created.
So, let’s say that you want to write a book and you just can’t seem to move forward. No matter what you do, you’re staying stuck. Why? One reason might be because this “part” knows that if you write a book, you will be seen by others, and based on experience, that can be unpredictable and dangerous. So it prevents you from stepping out and taking risks where you might be seen. You may not even be aware of this part consciously. Yet it could be there, working day and night to protect you.
2. Meditate.
Being stuck can sometimes prompt negative thoughts, such as “What if I’m stuck forever?” or “I’m not good enough.” These thoughts can then lead to negative emotions, which can then make us feel even more stuck and overwhelmed. It’s a vicious cycle. Meditation can help you break out of this cycle and receive clarity, which can help you find direction and move forward.
Set a time each day to meditate. It doesn’t need to be that long—even just ten minutes is enough. If you have trouble sitting silently, you could search for a guided meditation on YouTube.
Make it part of your routine and do it at the same time each day to keep momentum going. Doing it at the same time each day will help it become part of a habit and make it easier to remember.
If you start thinking while you’re sitting silently, that’s okay! Just come back to your breath. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to cultivate some stillness and silence. This practice helps you drop out of your mind and into your body, where so much wisdom lives.
3. Stimulate your vagus nerve.
Your vagus nerve regulates your entire nervous system. When your vagus nerve is activated, it helps calm your nervous system, which helps shift you into a more creative, open state of being. It is from this state that you can more easily access wisdom within yourself.
There are a variety of ways to stimulate your vagus nerve. Because the vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords, humming or singing is one way to achieve this:
- Focus on your breath and notice anything you feel in your body. Maybe you feel pressure on your chest, a pain in your neck, a burning in your throat, etc.
- Breathe in deeply.
- As you exhale, say “Voo” out loud for the entire length of the exhale.
- Sit and notice how your body is feeling now. Is there any difference?
- Continue steps two through four until you feel a shift.
4. Change your environment.
Have you ever taken a trip to a new place or gone on a great hike and felt a sense of renewed inspiration, clarity, or presence? The reason for this is because we grow when we’re out of our comfort zone.
Being in a new environment, meeting new people, and having new experiences takes us out of our comfort zone, opens our minds, and provides us with the opportunity to grow and learn more about ourselves. It shakes things up from our normal day-to-day experiences.
Get out into nature or go on an overnight getaway. It doesn’t need to be something fancy—anything that will get you out of your current space can help shift the stuckness.
Is there an area of your life where you feel stuck or don’t know what to do? Which of these actions most resonates with you? Or, do you have an action you typically take that works best?
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Learning to Have Faith That All Is Well
“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.” ~Wayne Dyer
Gwen and I first met at a lactation group for new moms. She seemed like someone I’d get along with, and we talked here and there, eventually becoming Facebook friends, but nothing more.
Fate (or just good luck) intervened, though, when we met up again months later at the first birthday party of a mutual acquaintance’s daughter.
Gwen was the only person I knew at the party (other than the hostess, of course), and I was the only person she knew, so we started chatting. I was quickly reminded of how much I liked her, and after she told me she was desperate to hang out with someone other than her retired next door neighbor, we made a plan to meet up.
We clicked immediately. We talked parenting, politics, relationships, and more, and on a really deep, intimate level. I felt like I’d known her forever, and by the end of our first playdate she said something along the lines of, “I really like you and I’m so glad we had the chance to meet again!”
I felt so happy and full, and our relationship continued along this way for more than a year. Our kids were close in age, so we’d play at each other’s houses, meet at a playground, or do some sort of activity. One time we went away to a lake for a few nights and I had more fun (and talked more) than I’d had since I was a teenager.
Then things changed a little bit. We both got busier, and the fact that we lived about forty minutes away from one another made it challenging to hang out. Our visits dwindled to about once a month instead of once a week, though we were always happy to see each other.
Or so I thought.
A few months after this shift, we went more than a month without seeing each other. I had contacted her at one point, but she had said she wasn’t available on any of the days I was free.
Two more weeks passed and I heard nothing. Finally, with her birthday on the horizon, I texted her to say that it was weird not talking to her, and that I missed her. No response.
I texted a childhood friend, someone whom I’ve known for decades, and asked her what she thought I should do. She said Gwen was probably just busy, and I shouldn’t worry about it.
A couple of days later I sent another follow up text to Gwen, one that simply said “Hello?” and heard nothing once again.
I started to get really down whenever I thought about the situation. Even though we’d both been much busier lately, each taking on part-time jobs and working on side businesses of our own, I felt gloomy and worried. I thought we’d be friends for the long haul.
One night, while I was lying in bed, I talked to myself about just letting it go. Being mad wasn’t going to do anything, being hurt wasn’t going to help, and I’d done my best to reach out.
And then you know what? I woke up one day and there was a text from her.
It said, “Did you get my texts?? I think something is wrong with my phone, because I haven’t heard from you at all, but I just saw that all of your recent texts had gone to my iPad!” I immediately texted her back, and we realized the issue had to do with her getting a new phone, a technological glitch.
We happily texted each other back and forth, with me even telling her how I was wondering what the heck was going on, and quickly made plans for the next week.
When I went online later that same day, I saw she’d posted a message on my timeline that said something similar to her text: “I don’t think our texts are getting to each other. Message me!”
Here’s what struck me when I read that: Gwen had faith. In herself, in our friendship, perhaps in life in general.
I did not.
Why did I automatically assume she didn’t want to be friends with me anymore after she didn’t respond to just a couple of texts? Why didn’t I send her a message on Facebook? Why didn’t I try calling her? Why did I just give up?
I realized this was a pattern with me; I was often looking for the bad in things rather than the good. Looking for reasons why things wouldn’t work out rather than why they would. This was something I needed to change.
The incident with Gwen happened nearly two years ago now, and thinking back on it, I see how much I’ve changed and how much better my attitude is.
First of all, I’ve realized how much my thoughts and outlook impact every single area of my life. In this scenario, I could have told myself something kind instead of assuming the worst. I could have thought, “It’s been a long time, I bet Gwen misses seeing me, too!” instead of thinking she didn’t want to be friends anymore.
I had and have no control over someone else’s thoughts or actions, so even if it was true that Gwen didn’t want to have a friendship anymore, I could have looked for things to appreciate instead of automatically jumping to the bad.
Thinking about how thankful I was to have had the friendship when I really needed it while at home with a young child, or being appreciative of meeting someone I could talk to so easily, regardless of how long the relationship lasted, would have both been more beneficial stories to tell myself than the negative ones.
Second, I’ve developed more faith in myself and in life. I’ve often struggled to believe that things can work out, regardless of the area of my life I’m thinking about (career, relationships, finances), and focusing on what’s working rather than dwelling on the negative has made a big difference.
Sure, things can go wrong, but my deep sense of believing it’s going to be okay regardless of what’s happening in the moment has caused a big shift in my world. If the same thing happened today, I have confidence that I would tell myself, “All is well, and no matter how this works out, I can handle it.”
Third, I’ve worked on changing the “I’m not good enough” story that makes me question my worth as a human being. Talk about a recurring theme in my life! Whether I was stressed about my performance at work or worrying over a guy I liked, I often had the “not good enough” story on repeat in the background. This affected the Gwen situation in a big way, because I was letting myself believe I was somehow unworthy of our friendship and believing something was wrong with me.
This is still a work in progress, but I’ve come a long way. Catching myself when I have these thoughts is important, as well as reminding myself that it’s just something I’m making up, and humans all have similar thoughts. Getting stuck in them makes things worse; doing something positive for myself, like going for a walk or taking a nap, can make them better.
Lastly, I’ve tried to just stop worrying. About everything. Yes, that’s a tall order, and no, I’m not completely there yet, but being aware of my worry allows me to channel it into something else.
For instance, if I found myself worrying over my friendship status with someone now, I’d stop, take a step back, and ask myself if there’s anything I could take action on in that moment. If I decided yes, I’d take that action, whether it was picking up the phone or sending an email, but if I decided no, I’d be diligent about changing my focus to something else. Worry doesn’t solve anything, it only digs you into a deeper hole.
It can feel difficult to shift deeply ingrained thoughts and patterns, but when you realize they’re making your life harder and sadder than it needs to be, you’ll see they’re worth the work to change them.
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How I Stopped Worrying About What Others Think of Me
“Live your life for you not for anyone else. Don’t let the fear of being judged, rejected or disliked stop you from being yourself.” ~Sonya Parker
On August 4, 2022, I buzzed off my long, thick, luscious hair.
I marched up Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, walked into Take Pride Barbershop, and sat in the chair with the most badass barber. She quelled my last-minute fears and boldly took the clippers to my never-shorter-than-shoulder-length hair.
It was instant liberation.
I had finally worked up the courage to do so after four years of internal debate and worry, which went something like: What will people think? Will people think I’m a man? Will people treat me differently? What if I’m actually ugly and my ugliness will be revealed? What if my head is oddly shaped? Will I have to wear a bunch of makeup?
My worries and thoughts were clearly steeped deep in societal conditioning about beauty and femininity. We are told that long hair is feminine and beautiful. We are told that young women aren’t supposed to have short hair. We are told that if you are a woman with short hair, be sure to wear makeup and jewelry so you look feminine.
But I finally stopped all the thinking, broke free from those norms, and I just did it. I said, “Off with the hair!”
And now I feel free-er, sexier, and prettier.
I feel more like me.
It’s as if I shed layers that were actually hiding my true essence. My true essence as an adventurous, empathic, sensual being who sometimes feels soft and tender, and other times feels bold and badass. My true essence as someone who is wary of rules and authority.
It’s also as if I shed layers of my ego. Because whether I like to admit it or not, my hair was a significant piece of my identity as a woman. Hair is an expert communicator, with the ability to send so many messages through a single glance. Hair communicates gender, sexuality, wealth, age, health, and parts of our personality.
Now that I have shed my long hair, I think the only part of me that is still communicated via my hair is my personality. For one can no longer look at me and quickly deduce my gender, sexuality, wealth, age, or health. (I do have very toned muscles and glowing skin, so people should be able to make an assumption about my health, but some people only see the short hair and assume I have cancer).
What is communicated boldly is that I create and live by my own rules. And if people know one thing about me, THAT is exactly what I want them to know.
My buzzed hair also lends an air of mystery, as people wonder about all of those other little check boxes (gender, wealth, age, etc.) that are usually communicated via hair.
While I did shed some layers of my ego, my buzzed head also makes a pretty strong statement, and in full transparency, I get a lot of attention. This attention comes in all forms.
Sometimes it’s “Excuse me sir…oh! I mean ma’am.”
Sometimes it’s “You need to wear lipstick to look more feminine.” (Who said I wanted to look more feminine?!)
Other times it’s “Omg, you’re so beautiful” or “I LOVE your hair.”
Sometimes I get free guac.
I get a lot of smiles from passersby on the sidewalk.
I get a lot of lingering looks at the post office, the coffee shop, and the dance floor.
And while I do love to be called beautiful (who doesn’t?!), I don’t attach myself to the praise or the criticism because I have decided for myself that I am strong, radiant, and beautiful, from the inside out. I no longer care if people think I look masculine or feminine, ugly, or beautiful. I don’t care if people in Idaho think I have cancer. I don’t care if people think I look like a skinny boy without makeup on. (What’s wrong with looking like a skinny boy?!)
This level of not caring, of being so confident in who I am, is the ultimate freedom.
Plus, I know that when people react one way or the other, it is not really about me and my hair. Their reaction means that I activated something within them. I activated their desire to be free and to stop following the rules that someone else laid out for them.
In the best cases, I offer others a little permission slip to step into their own boldness. Which is one of my favorite parts of buzzed life—when women tell me I’ve inspired them to buzz their long hair! That they were so worried about what people would think, but after seeing me do it, they now have the courage too. That is powerful.
So while the hairstyle of one woman may seem like a simple and insignificant thing, it actually plays a small but important role in the liberation and empowerment of women.
For when a woman has the courage to push back against beauty standards, that courage is ignited, and she also develops the courage to choose freedom in other facets of her life as well.
For me, that has looked like more sexual freedom—making me more playful in bed and bolder in sharing my desires—and more confidence in all areas of my life.
Buzzing my hair has also created more time in my life, as I spend less time getting ready. It’s created more mental space, as I no longer spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about how to style my hair, when to wash it, and whether or not to get it highlighted.
It has also freed up more money because I no longer spend hundreds of dollars on highlights and cuts. My fiancé buzzes my hair at home and, occasionally, I bleach it myself.
It’s also led to freedom in how I dress. Sometimes I like to dress to express my femininity. Other times, I dress to express my masculinity. As someone who used to be deeply insecure about her tomboy-ish-ness and lack of desire to wear makeup, I have reclaimed the masculine parts of me with pride, which has been an integral part of my healing and expansion journey.
It has also deepened my sensuality. In the shower, the water massages my head more intimately. On a summer day, the sun kisses me deeply. On a breezy morning, the wind and I dance a graceful dance. On the dance floor, the softness of my fiancé’s lips activates my crown chakra. I feel less separation between the world and me. I am more integrated. I am more aware of my oneness with the natural world.
Yes, all of this because of my buzzed hair!
So I’ll leave you with a few parting words of wisdom:
1. People are going to talk and have an opinion about you no matter what, so you might as well do what you want and be who you want.
2. Others’ opinions of you really have more to do with them than they do with you, so don’t take stuff too personally and concern yourself first and foremost with your opinion of yourself.
3. If you want to buzz your head, do it. If you don’t like it, it’ll grow back. But I bet you will like it!
So here’s to taking action to live as a more free, wild, and confident you!
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How Pain Can Be a Teacher and Why We Need to Stop Avoiding It
“The strongest hearts have the most scars.” ~Unknown
I always hated pain when growing up. For as long as I can remember I tried to avoid it. Physical pain was uncomfortable, but emotional pain was the real torture. It was sometimes easier to have a fight and stop communicating than to have a challenging conversation.
Disconnecting emotionally and withdrawing from painful experiences was my de facto subconscious strategy. I still pursued goals and succeeded, but this didn’t feel painful to me because I used my passion and bravado to drive through the long hours and grueling work.
If I wasn’t avoiding pain, I was in denial. It cost me. Ignoring a painful feeling made me numb all over. Denying an unpleasant emotion made me oblivious to the whole spectrum of sensations.
Avoiding dentists created more issues and massive bills down the road. Dodging challenging scenarios and boredom cost me passions and hobbies that could have led to a different career or a creative outlet.
This continued until one day I found myself without busy work and distractions when taking a career break. Not being able to hide behind time fillers, a whole army of emotions and feelings came at once. The bottled-up monster escaped, the dam broke, and the castle fell under attack.
It was overwhelming and frightening. Remembering from my coaching training that sensory adaptation will kick in at some point, I let it all play out. I meditated for hours observing the emotions rising and falling like an ocean tide. Eventually, the monster deflated and the flood dried out.
Recognizing that there is an issue is the first step to resolving it. I realized that this was not the way I wanted to continue living. After learning more about mind machinery, I became aware of my behavioral patterns. Enneagram type 7, called Enthusiast or Epicurian, perfectly described how I ran “Me”—motivated by a desire to be happy and avoid discomfort.
Before that, I accepted my pain avoidance patterns as an unchangeable status quo. I did not see reality in any different way. With time, I learned that pain was not the bogeyman to be afraid of.
Pain became my teacher, an early alarm that something was not going well, and a motivator. Getting praise and encouragement for good behavior isn’t the only way to learn. Our participation prizes-driven society creates a false sense of entitlement, preventing us from personal growth.
Teacher pain can fix unproductive behavior or an issue almost instantaneously. As cruel as they can be, these lessons are long remembered and followed sometimes our whole lives. A perfect example of this is how Tony Robbins made his early mark as a quit smoking coach by making clients associate nausea and fear of his booming voice with cigarettes.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting we should knowingly hurt ourselves or others as a teaching tool; just that we need to stop avoiding pain and discomfort because they can both lead to growth.
When I became appreciative and respectful of pain, I was able to slow down and learn more about what it taught me.
Our bodies communicate through sensations. Pain is one of the common languages that the body uses to make us understand in a split second that something isn’t right. It also can speak for both your body and mind, as our emotional and physical circuitry is interconnected. Taking Panadol can ease the pain of social rejection in the same way it can fix your headache.
It is the language that bonds us with other humans. Shared painful experiences do not need to be explained. They are understood on a deeper level. Compassion is born from the language of pain, as it makes us appreciate what another person is going through.
What would our lives be like if we never experienced pain? Without an early alarm system, a broken bone would not hurt, eventually causing a deadly infection. A serious illness would go unnoticed until a person perished. Congenital insensitivity to pain is a very rare condition affecting 1 out of 25,000 newborns. It is also very dangerous, and most affected people do not survive their childhood.
When we strip away pain from its emotionally excruciating quality, it is essentially a sensation. Experienced meditators can attest that knee and back pain during long seated meditation sessions eventually lead to the emotional context fading away, showing pain for what it really is.
It took time to learn the language of pain. Running out of breath, having sore muscles, or feeling anxiety before a performance is good pain. Sharp pain in joints or feeling of discomfort, leading to a crippling flight-or-fight response, is a different animal.
Good pain keeps us wanting more of the experience. It motivates incremental growth by forming a habit of seeking that familiar feeling. Its bad cousin will cripple us if left unnoticed or overwhelm us, teaching hopelessness.
The school of pain can’t be skipped. We can’t call in sick or cheat our way out of it. The teacher pain will keep calling our names until we show up for the lesson. Avoiding it would eventually cost more. It is feeding a bottled-up monster that one day turns into a formidable Godzilla.
It’s pointless to hide from it. Just like Buddha found out about death, sickness, and old age despite his parents’ best efforts to shield him, we will all have to accept that it is ever-present in our lives.
Walking a life journey made me realize that sometimes there is no other option but to face pain. As uncomfortable and frightening as it may be, if I don’t square up to the monster, it will never go away.
The saying “the only way out is through” holds true. The next level of personal growth has to happen through discomfort. Though these victories may be invisible to everyone else, they are uniquely valuable to us.
It may sound like I’ve mastered the art of facing the uncomfortable and I am no longer concerned about pain. That is not true. The lessons I get from pain are still challenging.
As much as I don’t want to sit through hard lessons, I’ve learned to respect and heed pain’s presence. Knowing that becoming invincible to it is impossible, I’ve learned to recognize the challenge and see it as a catalyst for growth.
Anticipating pain keeps me motivated to avoid its visits and learn on my own. I will probably never tolerate pain as some people do. I am probably wired that way. But nature can always be complemented by nurture. Resilience, acceptance, and embracing the suck make it valuable learning.
In her influential book The Upside of Stress, psychologist Kelly McGonigal challenged conventional thinking that stress kills. The research shows that how we perceive stress can turn a negative into positive. Pain can be seen in the same way.
We can’t pick and choose which parts of human experience we want to face. As tempting as it is to only eat the cherry on top of life’s cake, this will never make us appreciate life wholly. We need to accept all of it. Without pain, we do not know pleasure. Without the discomfort of ignorance, there is no bliss of knowledge.
