Growth has a few steps required in order to successfully happen.
I’ve talked about them at length. As a matter a fact that’s pretty much all I talk about. Today I want to describe something that happens in the phase where we’re at our most scared and vulnerable.
Do you know when you have that feel or sensation that you’re totally exposed? Like you’re out there on the thin branches and things feel so unstable and that you’re all alone? Yeah, things get pretty scary and pretty lonely there.
As we attempt to change anything, be it physical, mental, or emotional we have to do something we’ve never done. We must enter that blessed land of the unknown. Welcome! It’s intense and beautiful here. When we’re there things happen psychologically to tell us we’re not supposed to be here. Mechanisms (voices) come online to start providing stimulation to get our attention and point us back towards certainty and stability. You know what I’m talking about?!
This is where we default. This choice point is where we betray ourselves again and again. We come to a crossroads and we take a detour that lands us back to where we started. Whoops! Hello. “I’ve already been here.” “This is all familiar and I know my way around here.” “I don’t even have to look at the street signs.”
So what do you do when you default? What is the moment you abandon your plan, bargain your way out of your current path, and you revert? Seriously. Take a second and go back to the last time or two where you had something you were headed towards and think.
There was something that you were going to have to give up in order to get what you wanted. (Safety, certainty, connections, “imagined success”, ) You see with change comes loss. Something has to go. Something has to be intentionally terminated.
When you default you chose safety or… my favorite… familiarity. Even if what’s familiar is fucked, you know your way around there and you settle for certainty. Even if it’s certain pain, suffering, and blah blah blah… You feel in control, you’re able to navigate your way through some lame, tired ass, old pattern and you think you’ve got this shit down… wrong, you’re fucked. You’ve got to face the unknown, vow not to default, and hand out in the ambiguity of uncertainty to integrate change.
What’s the one thing you’ve committed to doing different? How can you advance that today? Just move the needle over one degree.