Embracing The Uncomfortable
Welcome to my first post on Medium. I recently launched my project Above The Middle after finally plucking up the courage to begin expressing myself publicly. The project combines my passions for individual development, neuroscience and psychology into one big bundle of expression. Succumbing to my anxieties and playing small was my default mode for much of my teenage years and early adulthood. Publishing this work has allowed me to finally step into my authenticity and I couldn’t be happier. Hopefully I can encourage others to do the same.
Today I wanted to touch on the subject of being uncomfortable and how in changing our relationship to the unknown and the fear that often arises from this unknown, we are only setting ourselves up for a fuck load of growth.
See I’ve touched on the subject of anxiety in my latest video but I wanted to dive into that FEELING that comes up when anxiety arises. That clenching of the throat when you want to say something or those knots in your belly when you dare dream of the things you want to achieve. I also wanted to talk about why I inevitably chose to embrace that feeling rather than to avoid it.
It all comes down to growth.
There is a direct correlation between your ability to grow and your ability to embrace uncomfortable feelings
To add to that
The ONLY time you are growing is when you are uncomfortable
Think about that for a second
We are programmed to play safe. Way back in the day, playing safe and sticking to the stuff you knew kept you alive. You didn’t venture beyond your piece of land from fear of the swathes of predators that could eat you alive if you dared take a look. You didn’t disrupt the clans status-quo from fear of being casted out. Being casted out meant abandonment. It meant death. These are scary fucking things. No wonder we developed a fear-response system to make sure our brains would prevent us from doing these things. It’s a wonder where we would be without it.
Fast-forward to 2020 and life is much different. For most of us, these primal fears aren’t an issue anymore and yet we are still very much tied into our routines, our safe practices and our ways of life that are not serving us on a deeper level. We become comfortable with playing safe. Why is that? Most of us live in a world FULL of opportunity and FULL of possibility.
Many people die for the opportunities we have.
The opportunities we don’t take because we are afraid.
Afraid of feeling uncomfortable
That feeling of being uncomfortable and those feelings of anxiety are difficult feelings to manage. After all, these reactions had to be strong enough to save us from life-threatening situations in the past. They’re so strong that we avoid facing them. We avoid these triggering situations like the plague for the feelings that might come up.
We have to stop avoiding and start embracing
The only way to true progress and true personal growth is through being uncomfortable. That’s just the way it is.
The more you avoid uncomfortable feelings the scarier its going to be. Because you are telling yourself there IS reason to afraid. That there IS reason to fear stepping outside of your comfort zone. That will keep you small. It’s literally like adding gasoline to a fire. Anxiety loves gasoline. It loves avoidance. It feeds of it. Don’t feed the monster. Embrace it, make it your friend.
It can even get kind of fun the more you practice. When I want to do something and I get that uncomfortable feeling pop up I’m like “Oh boy we’re about to grow”. Because that’s what it is. Anxiety is there to stop you from doing things and to keep you doing what is safe to you. When it pops up in your life stop looking at it like the enemy and start looking at it as OPPORTUNITY for GROWTH.
We live in a world full of opportunity. Don’t allow your fear of the unknown to stop you from doing what YOU WANT TO DO. There is more to life than playing it safe.
