Embracing Discomfort #2

 Hello, and welcome to another episode of Spiritual Shit. I'm your host, Alea Lovely, and we are doing another episode on discomfort today to be in our second episode of the series embracing discomfort. I got a lot of feedback from y'all about that first episode and it was really positive. I'm so happy that it's helped so many of you and I'm really happy because I think discomfort is a difficult thing for a lot of us to talk about or engage with in one way or another.

We are often always trying to escape how we feel and discomfort. So today we're covering how to confront that very discomfort and how to sit with it. If you haven't listened to the first episode, episode 200, I would strongly recommend you go listen to that first before you listen to this one to give you the tools and the foundation to get into this step.

Specifically. But before we do that, I would love to encourage you to go check out manifestthem. com. We have a workshop that me and Shirin Eskandani did about manifesting your soulmate and how to manifest in general in a really, really amazing way, different than what has been taught in traditional manifestation or the way that we know it.

And it's really, really Work that I believe in. And right now we have a code where you can get 50 percent off 50 percent off. Like, it's never going to be a better deal than that. And you can get that until Valentine's day. So you have a few more days to get half off of our six hour. Maybe it's eight hours.

I don't remember. It's like, it's up there. Course that will help you learn about what's blocking you. If there are any limiting beliefs or any aspects to your energy that can help you get into a loving relationship with yourself, but also manifest a partner. Now, if it sounds too good to be true, that's totally fine.

We do have the testimonials to back it up. So we've been able to prove that it works. And so if that's something you're interested in, go to manifestthem. com and hopefully you'll really enjoy the workshop. I think me and Shirin just really play well off of each other and maybe one day we'll have a podcast, but until then check that out.

The other thing is, is I wanted to let you know that if you're a part of my Patreon, we are having our first meetup or doing like a spiritual people forum and you'll get that link on Patreon. But the idea is, is that we're having discussions about our spiritual journeys with other people going through the same thing.

And I had a community a while ago called Conscious Community that was something similar. Where we were able to talk through things. I'm hosting it in a different way this time, but the idea is to be able to discuss with other people, the things that we're all going through as humans on this earth, but also what it means to have this kind of spiritual awakening and be able to talk to other people who know what you're going through.

So like a support group for. Spiritual people, I guess. Church. I don't know. Whatever you want to call it. It should be a really good time. I really enjoy when I'm able to meet with my community and that will be available to you if you get on my patreon. com slash the lolly alia to be a part of that group.

So let's get into today's episode right now. We are talking about confronting discomfort and The idea is, is to focus this episode on how we perceive discomfort and our response to it. So let's delve into the ways that we view and cope with challenges that arise. I want to just ask you, what, how do you see discomfort in your life?

How do you see discomfort in totality? Is it just inconvenience? Is it a distraction? Is it the villain in your life? We're going to explore different lenses in which we interpret this discomfort. And I think what made this topic so interesting to me is that We encounter discomfort in all aspects of our life, but whether or not we confront it or deal with it is a whole different story.

We're often taught that we're needing to suppress negative thoughts or negative feelings or aspects in our body that get triggered or have discomfort. And so there is a way that I think our society deals with discomfort that to me feels a little bit unhealthy. It's always off looking towards the next thing.

Let's do this. Let's do that. And we live these lives that are often very uncomfortable, but are remiss or removed from connecting to that discomfort. And so when we're looking at our daily lives, I just want you to sit here and think about what makes me feel uncomfortable. Go through your day. What affects your convenience and day to day?

I think about the discomfort I had before I was in a partnership and then the discomfort that I have after. It's like the partnership coming into my life got rid of one discomfort only to replace it with another and I will say the discomforts are much less but definitely Being in a partnership has challenged some of the ways that I see myself and some of the ways that I do things.

And that can be really uncomfortable. I could have been, it could have been easier when I was single to overlook those aspects of my personality and the quirkiness that I have or the control aspects that I have or how my Zodiac sign shows up, you know, there can be these different aspects in which the universe will bring something or someone in your life to hold a mirror to yourself to show you where you might need to change.

And I think that the aspect of discomfort is really important because it is a catalyst that allows us to grow. It is a place where we say. I don't fit here anymore. I need to do something else. Those of you who went through awakenings or who felt that aspect of awakening, that was deeply uncomfortable.

And at first it felt fun, right? It's like, Ooh, let me get the Oracle cards or let me read this book or that book. Let me binge my favorite podcast. Let me listen to all the experts of this topic that I find to be very novel. But when we actually have to start doing the work of remembering who we are, that can feel deeply uncomfortable because we're having to remove programming or conditioning that we've had for our whole life.

And so these imprints that we've existed within no longer feel comfortable to us. They're no longer. Something that fits and sometimes when we're in that situation, it's like Square peg round hole like we can't fit back into that space and They describe it as dark night of the soul, which it sounds ominous anyway but this idea that There can be a time where you feel this depression upon remembering who you are and remembering, you know, what your mission is here, how you want to love yourself or how you want to show up in the world day to day.

And that changes. And some of us are not comfortable with change. Some of us have a difficult time in changing our routine, changing our habits, changing our personality, changing how the relationships that we have in our life. And so what does it mean to even be influenced by our. What's really interesting to me is that when we go into other cultures, we can see where their level of discomfort is higher, or at least their propensity to be able to stand discomfort is higher.

And what was really interesting to me in all my travels is that there are loads of cultures out there that don't think that we need to miss out. on discomfort, that it's just a part of life. There's more acceptance in the ideal of dealing with discomfort and not merely trying to make it go away. I think that at least in our country, we have a really big issue with escapism and it's driven by consumerism.

It's driven by. A lot of things, but it's taught us not to look in the direction of what's bringing us discomfort. Look over here at this shiny thing instead. And it makes us think that it's not something that's supposed to be happening to us. And with that perspective, it's really challenging when we go through things in our life, living in manifestation culture, right?

That I'm supposed to get what I want just by thinking about it. Think of that as a concept by itself. Since I do loads and loads and loads of manifestation content, and I just finished my manifestation book, it is so interesting to me, and I talk about this in the book, the idea that we have come up with this perfectly packaged, really neat idea of how manifestation is supposed to make us happy.

When I don't think it does, I think manifestation is to help us heal, but manifestation, when we put our intention within something, we put ourselves in tension with the thing that we desire. So automatically by wanting more or wanting something new, we're putting ourselves in a position to be uncomfortable, to grow into the person that can accept that as a manifestation.

Or maybe the things that we have to lose in our life in order to make space for that particular manifestation. Either way, it's not going to be a cakewalk. And somehow we had, we got it twisted, y'all. We got it twisted that that it was supposed to be. It's supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be fast. And a lot of times our discomfort comes from Needing to be patient, needing not to escape, needing to be real with what's in front of us and deal with the uncomfortable feelings or the uncomfortable thoughts or the uncomfortable waiting.

And I'm not saying anybody's lazy. I'll never say that, but it can feel really overwhelming. And we can sometimes hide from that discomfort because it's supposed to be easy, right? I don't think it is. I think it's meant to put us in a place of discomfort so that we will challenge and change and get to know ourselves.

I think manifestation is there as a way for us to know who we are as people and what's really truly important and meaningful to us. And, you know, getting a second yacht is probably not like one of those things. No, no judgment if you can, you know, you have Watts out the Yazoo, but the idea to me is that through our manifestations, we're calling ourselves into discomfort because we want something different than what we have and no shade.

That's just a part of life, but I think it's a tool that helps us start getting uncomfortable so that way we can get authentic. And many of my clients have a really difficult time staying open when they feel like they're suffering. Now, I understand that because I know that there are things that I want to have in this life.

And sometimes not having those things makes me deeply uncomfortable. I think I'd be way more comfortable in my house on the Hill in France that I've dreamed about, but. Here we are. I'm in Kansas city during winter. So the lack of manifestation that you have can also cause you discomfort. If you've made a big life change, so you changed a job or left a relationship or.

Have moved across the country or something like that either way. There's going to be challenge in Whatever that you do whenever you change that position It's meant to expand you so we have this habit when we're in a space of discomfort That we start to suffer in a way where we say something to the effective This isn't supposed to be happening to me.

This shouldn't be happening. This wasn't supposed to happen I've used this phrase quite a bit and And it is Interesting, because what do we know about what's supposed to happen? We had an expectation. It didn't turn out the way that we thought it should have. And we immediately start to feel that this thing that has happened or hasn't happened is not what it should be.

And to me, for some reason, that causes additional suffering instead of us embracing and confronting that discomfort of why do I feel the way that I feel? Why did I feel like this should have happened or shouldn't have happened? What are the feelings that are following that disappointment and expectation?

And how can I sit with what I'm feeling right now? How do I explore the feelings of Not having that thing or having that thing or feeling this thing, maybe you just got a health diagnosis. That's really scary. This wasn't supposed to happen. It can be deeply challenging when we're dealing with major things like that, like major life events, major changes, and It can cause us more suffering.

I tend to subscribe to some Buddhist thinking where they say everything's neutral. And I don't know how far I take that, but the idea of neutrality helps me sit with discomfort. It helps me look at it as a catalyst for positive change, being able to challenge my perspective on what's truly valuable in my life.

So there are instances for sure where I've dealt with some health issues that have really made me feel. More focused on my family, I felt less focused on work, less focused on social media, less obligated to, you know, fulfill the roles of a content creator because I had an immediate reckoning of what's truly valuable in my life.

And how can that uncomfortable situation be a catalyst for positive change in the way that I see my life play out, what's really truly meaningful to me and important and fulfilling in my purpose here. So when I've encountered situations in my life where I'm like, this wasn't supposed to happen. I just kind of replaced that with, I didn't expect this to happen.

This way, because when we say this wasn't supposed to happen, it's almost like we put the universe in a place where this is personal. This wasn't supposed to happen to me. This wasn't, you know, and I think that that can cause us a separation from, from our discomfort. It helps us blame some otherly force about what's happening in our life.

And I'm not saying that you're the one to blame. Not at all. But maybe there's no one to blame. Maybe there is. Maybe there definitely is. But either way, how can we sit with that? What does it look like to sit with that and say, okay, I didn't expect this, but I'm going to roll with it. Like I'm going to put this in the neutral category.

It's not personal that someone in the universe is trying to hurt me necessarily, but I might come with lessons that I've wanted to learn. or achieve while it was here on earth. And now this thing is happening and it's incredibly uncomfortable, but this is how I'm going to mitigate some of that suffering.

Now, I feel like this doesn't apply in every situation, because if you are in a country where There is genocide happening or it's war torn and you were born into that situation. I'm not saying in any stretch that that's discomfort that you just need to sit with and be vulnerable about to be authentic with yourselves and neutral and dismiss the, the bigger powers that are, are.

happening around you and causing that kind of reality. But what I will say is that being able to sit with this, this discomfort can help reduce the suffering you have in any situation. Being able to sit with your feelings in any situation is always going to be a benefit to you, your mental wellness, your psyche and the exploration of your spiritual self to start to get to know how you think, how you feel is an important aspect to building A little bit of a safeguard around discomfort, because if you know how you behave when something is uncomfortable, you'll know what to do next.

You'll know how to sit with it. So what can we do to sit with it instead of escaping? Have you cultivated any conscious strategies for embracing the discomfort and exploring what you feel that allows yourself to fully experience it? So Maybe you decide to journal or meditate or I really like to make voice notes But when I'm when I'm sitting with something uncomfortable I like to vent on this voice note and then listen back to it The listening back to it is really super helpful because it gives me a chance to hear myself For what I was feeling in that moment and those of you who feel like a lot of times people Misunderstand you or you don't feel seen this is a great tool That I, I highly recommend because in that moment you get to see yourself and it may satiate that feeling that, okay, no one understands me, but I understand myself.

I can hear myself. I can hear the anger that I feel. I can feel a disappointment. You can make a voice note that's a podcast length long and say anything you want to say to get it at least out of your body. And help it be witnessed by someone. Now if you have a close friend like I do where I'm like able to vent sometimes and I'm able to just tell them like this is what's going on and whatever I'm just venting with no judgment.

That's incredible. But if you don't have that doing this as a tool for yourself, whether, whether you're journaling doing an audio recording or, you know, something else, it's going to help you. be able to reflect and be that mirror to the discomfort that you might be feeling. When we try to escape discomfort, we tend to pick up habits that can be not so great for us because we're only delaying our dealing with discomfort.

So for some of us, it's a retail therapy. I haven't even had the money to do retail therapy like I usually do. And that's been uncomfortable trying to sit with that. There are aspects where you might start to study your own behavior. What do I do when I'm feeling uncomfortable? Do I need to go on a trip?

Oh, that's definitely one of mine. Started to feel this antsiness of like, I need to get out of here. I need to go somewhere. Maybe it is you turn to drinking or you have. Some drug habits or whatever that help you escape so you don't have to feel that discomfort. At some point, you're going to have to come to a place where you're able to feel that and deal with it.

And it can be today, it can be 15 years from now. So I'm gonna tell you a story, and this is heavy trigger warning because I'm about to. tell you something incredibly vulnerable about a essay experience I had when I was younger. So deep breaths. So while I was writing my book, I started to uncover some, some things about myself.

It happened this week as I was finishing the book. And I started to think about My body and the, the uncomfortable confrontation with my weight or my shape or my clothes or whatever that happens perpetually almost daily in my life. Now, this is a type of discomfort I've just gotten used to. It's an, it's become habitual almost to berate myself and my clothes or think about myself in a non savory way about the way that I look.

And I had an eating disorder from when I was I think 11 or 12 until I was in college. And I had wondered, why did that switch? I thought I had gotten rid of my eating disorder, but in fact, I traded one for another. And I was trying to source, where did it come from? I wanted to look in and see deeply, why does it happen that I will get on a good eating plan or I'll start to work out.

And then once I start to see some progress, I'll stop what's happening there. Now I've berated myself for years saying you're. So undisciplined, you don't have the commitment. And I'm like, I'm really committed and disciplined person when it comes to literally everything else. But there almost feels like there's a block here.

And I've been trying to study it for years. What is this block that is making me have such a hard time with being able to follow through when it comes to my health? And it was so interesting how the universe at times is like, you weren't ready to see this before, but you're ready to see it now. And I started to have this recollection of a memory where I was essentially kidnapped my freshman year of college.

There was a big group of friends that we were all supposed to be together to go to the movies. And there was this guy that kept insisting that we went on a date. And I was like, I want to go on a date with you. He was some big football player. Whatever. I was not impressed. And he, it's, it's just like, it's really uncomfortable to talk about.

Here we are. The short version is, is that we were all supposed to go to the same movie theater. And the only car available for me to go with this group of friends was to get in his car. He ends up taking me to a different theater, much further out of town. And I won't go into the hairy details of what happened in that movie theater, but there was a lot of crossing lines of no consent.

And while it wasn't as bad as it could have been, thankfully, it was still incredibly traumatic. It was very traumatic. And so when I came back from the movie of I, I got back to my dorm and the next day, everybody was talking about how we had gone all the way. And I was like, that's not what happened. But I don't, didn't feel comfortable telling them what actually happened.

And so the shame and the guilt of not being able to use my voice and the feeling that I didn't have power and agency to be able to say no to certain things because He had threatened that he would leave me there and, you know, we didn't have cell phones and like the phones didn't work the way they used to.

Okay. I'm an elder millennial. So if you can think back 22 years, like we had flip phones. Okay. But it was so uncomfortable that the next day there were these rumors floating around about me that. You know, and I was like a Christian, like purity was really important to me, like purity in the Christian sense, I guess.

And so it was like having my name dragged through the mud and something that I didn't do, but also didn't choose to do. It was against my own wheel. And so that, that was extraordinarily uncomfortable to recall. But what was really interesting is that while I was recalling it, I was seeing a different face.

I wasn't seeing the face of the person who actually did these things. I was seeing somebody else's face, like a no, no one that my brain had created. So I didn't have to see his face anymore. And when I was recalling all this last week and I was thinking about it and I was like, wait a minute, what did he look like?

This is not the face, is it? And I had to ask myself that question. My intuition said, are you ready? And I said, yeah. Even though I knew it was going to be deeply uncomfortable. I was like, I think I can, I can sit with it now. And I was allowed mentally to see his real face. I had a panic attack. It was like, Oh, like suddenly my, my body didn't feel safe again.

And I felt nervous. I felt scared. I felt anxious, all of those feelings that I felt when I was 18 years old. And I just thought like, I need to sit with this. I need to, let it out. I needed to get out of my body because all of these years that I've been berating myself for not being disciplined has just been, in fact, my body, my brain trying to keep me safe.

Somewhere along the road, I learned that if I was in an attractive, stereotypically attractive body, that I was unsafe from men. And I sat down and I said, okay, let's sit with this. Let's sit with this idea that for. 20 something years. I have packed on pounds on purpose to keep myself safe. And that Maxim was much higher than losing any kind of weight.

Now, diet culture in our, our generation is already terrible. So it's like accept yourself as you are, you know, like that's number one. But number two, the fact that I had all of this, this mixed messaging of like, I want to, You know, be healthy. I want to be doing XYZ. I want to be working out, just moving my body, you know but there's something stopping me because it says that no, no, no.

When this happened to you, you were, you know, working out, you were doing track, you were, you know, whatever the thing is, fill in the blank. And so during that very particular part of my life, I associated a lot of exercise and stuff with this traumatic event. So I had a lot, I didn't realize this until last week, y'all.

I had a lot of trepidation around participating in those things because that might be, or put me in a body that put me at risk. And so I tried to write it out and I went to my notes and my notes said that I am more afraid of unwanted bad attention from men than I am of death due to bad health. Ooh, right?

I'm more afraid of bad unwanted attention from men than death due to bad health. And when I sat with that thought, it was, it was so uncomfortable because number one, it didn't necessarily seem rational by itself, but given my experiences that I've had with men over my adult life, it's. It's core to how I see the world and how I feel when I move about.

And so it was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking to think about that. This has been my lived experience for a very long time. And that in this trauma, I learned the best way I knew how. to cope. Food became safety. They became my safety. Like after dealing with an eating disorder, the discomfort of that and trading it for another of being invisible, unnoticed, unattractive, or seen as unattractive by my peers.

I still think I was cute, but there was just this, this feeling of like, no one can see me and the discomfort of feeling like no one wants me, but that being better than the feeling of everyone wants me. No one wants me was safer. For my body, for myself, and I, I wanted to fully embrace it and by fully embracing it, I said, what can I grow?

What can I, what, what leads to personal growth or positive outcome in this situation? I wrote down underneath that phrase. That I just mentioned that said, health has always been focused on size and being smaller society, especially as women make us feel that small is more attractive. So what if the compromise to my experience and my health is to become stronger self defense classes, strengthening my muscles and building them and not being so focused on size, but on strength.

That is a maxim I can get on board with and suddenly everything changed everything. The way that I see myself in the last seven days has been so different than I have seen myself for two decades. Suddenly I feel motivated. I feel excited to work out. I think about the ways that I'm going to build my muscles and build my strength and how the trauma that I had.

experience and the discomfort of recalling what had made me so uncomfortable or traumatized me even is now going to be something I use for positive change in my life. Like get rid of all the crappy body image, get rid of all the ideas that you're supposed to be small, take up space. It was suddenly like, Ooh, yeah, like take up space.

Like. Who cares if my arms get big, let them get big. No one's going to fucking mess with me. It felt good to take that aspect of my power back, but I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that without sitting with that discomfort. So do we tend to feel like victims when we're confronted with discomfort? Is this victimhood stemming from external sources or an internal struggles?

This is how we get to empower ourselves during moments of discomfort. Now, I was a victim of something happening to me that I did not choose to happen. I would not have chosen to happen given that it has like this external source of pressure of like women not speaking up or my internal struggle of feeling like maybe I did something to warrant this towards myself.

So how can I change that? Right. I grew up super Christian, so our bodies were already problematic. It would be like, don't tempt your, you know, brethren or whatever, like make sure to cover up because you don't want to tempt them. And I'm like, why are they not responsible for their own feelings? Like, why am I having to dress a certain way to keep them from acting out in lust?

Like bullshit. Like that was already pressed upon me in my church scenario that like you're responsible if something like that happens to you. And We're just not, we're not doing that. We're not doing that anymore. But this idea, like I was a victim to something that happened. I could have stayed a victim.

I'm not, I don't want to like, we're not gaslighting anybody for being the victim in this case, in any case. Okay. But I'm talking more about like, sometimes when, for instance, I want a partnership, but you know, there's nobody here. Like I can't do, you know, like there's nobody in my town. I have to leave town in order to find somebody or whatever.

Like that can be a way in which we disempower ourself through the aspect of there's nothing I can do. There's no way that I can empower myself. This shouldn't have happened to me. And what internal narratives exist around that because whether or not it should have happened to you, if something did happen to you, how are you able to sit with what happened?

How are you, or what, what did it happen? How are you able to sit with that and give yourself the power to be able to acknowledge what hurt you and move forward? What made you uncomfortable and move forward? Sometimes those things that make us uncomfortable are things that shouldn't have happened to us at all.

Sometimes the things that happen to us that are uncomfortable should happen. Say, you know, you're in a really bad relationship and suddenly confronted with the fact that like I need to get out of this relationship because I'm not happy. It's, it's uncomfortable to be in a bad relationship, but it's also uncomfortable to leave one.

And in order to empower yourself, you have to decide which one is more uncomfortable. And sometimes the leaving one is more uncomfortable. And instead of sitting with the discomfort, we find some fine ways of escaping that. And that doesn't empower ourselves because it doesn't. Allow us to proactively shift from being someone in a situation that feels like a victim mentally, to being a person who's an empowered mindset and able to, to make change around that.

A good example is my ex relationship. There was so much victimhood that I had being in a narcissistic, abusive relationship. I was definitely a victim in a lot of ways. However, I used to say this phrase where I was like, well, I made my bed. I made this decision, so I have to sit with it, I guess like. What?

There was a lot of conditioning that made me feel that this is the best that I could get that this This really uncomfortable marriage that I was in was all that I could expect for myself And obviously that comes with conditioning, but I used to think that like, okay Well, I made my bed like this is this is what I'll have to do We shared a house.

We shared a dog like we had, you know future plans if I were to leave this relationship I would have to abandon ship and obliterate Not just one person's life, but two and possibly more family and whatever. So when I finally came to the conclusion that like, okay, this discomfort of this relationship is now higher than my need to get out of it.

Then I made the decision, okay, I need to be out of this because my mental health is so shattered that like, Nothing can be more uncomfortable than this. So let's go. But what we'll tend to do is escape it. We'll find ways of escaping it. This is how cheating happens a lot of the time. We're in a relationship that we're not happy in and we find a way to feel a some sensation of escape while we're in it.

We patch our wounds in some way. We do retail therapy. We smoke weed or whatever the thing is. Like we find ways to ease That discomfort or numb that discomfort, and I'm asking you, how can you confront it now? I'm not saying that you need to do what I did and sit with your abuser and your mental state and allow your body to go in full panic mode.

However, Me being able to do that and saying, I'm not scared of you anymore was me taking my power back, being able to look at that discomfort, facing that discomfort, acknowledging the discomfort and saying like, I'm going to sit with you. I'm going to give you eyes to see. And your discomfort could be, you know, as something as easy as like your job, it can be being overstimulated by your kids.

It can be, I'm uncomfortable getting on the train every day for work. I hate it. But either way, being able to list out those grievances, the things that you're uncomfortable with, but then also asking yourself in these discomforts that I'm experiencing, are there any of them that are catalysts for growth for me?

Are any of them something that I can see headed towards positive change? There's discomfort in strength training, right? There's this discomfort in raising your weights when you're weightlifting. It's hard on the muscles. It tears the muscles down in order to build them back up. So there's a certain amount of discomfort in becoming stronger.

And becoming more expanded. And there are other aspects where there is discomfort in our life that serves us no purpose at all. And we have to make an uncomfortable decision about whether or not we want to stay in that space. Because if that space is causing so much discomfort that we never want to grow or never allowed to grow or to traumatize to grow, then that's also a situation we need to get out of.

And sometimes that can cause discomfort as well. Now I'm not talking about any one person in this situation. I know actually maybe five or six people right now going through relationship stuff and some of them have gotten out. Some of them are still in and looking at those aspects of discomfort. Cause I went through it personally, the way that we will talk ourselves out of what we need to do because we're so afraid.

of what can, what, what's the discomfort that's going to happen following these actions. And I always tend to say, especially to clients, like when you're ready, you'll be ready. Nobody's telling you that you need to do this before you're ready. We might think that this needs to happen on certain timeline, but when you're ready you'll know because people have told me for three years.

Like. Hey, this relationship you're in is like, not great. You seem like a shell of a person. You seem really sad. You seem really jumping and anxious, blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't until I was ready to really see it for what it was that I was able to face that discomfort and go, Oh, we're not doing this anymore.

So what strategies have you employed? Or what strategies can you employ to sit with that discomfort? And how can you proactively shift from this idea that something is happening to me instead of something that's happening for me? Now I wouldn't, this is kind of tough. Cause like, especially when you're talking about things like essay, it's like, this didn't happen for me.

Like, so. I'm not one to apply hard and fast principles to every situation. I don't think the world works like that. It's quite a bit more nuanced than that. It's not so black and white. However, with finding that out in this moment today, the discomfort I experienced may give Word or courage to someone who's hearing this podcast right now, the discomforts I've felt in my life have given me a different lens to see my world through and Maybe that was my specific contract when I came into this earth of like this is what I'm gonna learn This is how I'm gonna show up.

This is what I want to teach others And it's always been my belief for myself Anyway, that my my greatest wounds are my greatest teachers the thing that I feel the most wounded in is the thing that I can help people and With the most, it's going to be the thing that I'm most passionate about. And. It's probably going to be uncomfortable, but the more that I'm able to deal with it, the more I'm able to look at it, the more I'm able to talk about it, the more vulnerable and authentic I can get with myself to face what is uncomfortable in my life, the better chance I have of overcoming it.

And I think that you have the same potential. You have the same potential and we can get more akin. We can get more used to the discomforts that show up in our day to day life. I'm not saying bring more discomfort in your life. Although sometimes that discomfort is taking a risk. Maybe it's a financial risk.

Maybe changing your financial habits is uncomfortable. And that's actually putting you in a better space in your life. Changing your eating habits is uncomfortable, changing your workout regimen, changing the way that you study, changing the way that you talk to people, changing the way that you think about relationships, changing the way that you think about yourself.

All of those things, anything that requires us to expand is going to be uncomfortable. So we can empower ourselves by sitting with it and saying, okay, this happened. Not it's supposed to happen. It's not supposed to happen. Whatever this happened or didn't happen. I can look at it with neutral eyes and sit with what makes me feel uncomfortable about this thing.

Maybe it's the number in your bank account that makes you feel uncomfortable. Maybe it's not enough. Maybe it's too much. Some people are uncomfortable with that. Your lottery winners like go from having tons of money to just spending it all and getting rid of it because it's uncomfortable to have.

Sometimes attention is uncomfortable. Sometimes change is uncomfortable. Sometimes choosing yourself is uncomfortable. So while this is not a fail safe for every situation, discomfort is going to enter each and every one of our lives, no matter what. Our life is certain to have discomfort in one way or another, and we need to be able to Look at it, see it for what it is, see why it makes us feel that way and allow ourselves to acknowledge it, engage with it, embrace it.

Now, I'm not saying embrace discomfort in the sense of like, this is something that you have to sit with for the rest of your life. I'm saying, give it space. To be seen that to me is the definition of confronting your discomfort, asking yourself those questions. What am I feeling right now? I'm feeling discomfort.

Why am I feeling discomfort? I'm feeling discomfort because of X. How is this? Can this be a catalyst to your growth or is it at all? The situation I described to you, just being able to think about the things that I've been through that I don't want to think about and where some of my trigger reactions come from now will be very different than before this week.

The way that I'll treat myself and what I feel motivated to do. It was like I removed an extraordinary block from my heart. From my mindset, it has given me insight to the fear that I carry with me day in and day out. And it gives me access to knowing what I would like that to be instead. Because change is uncomfortable too.

If you had a certain way of thinking, even if it's not good, we're, we tend to be apt to accept the devil we know versus the devil we don't. So sometimes we'll hold on to things that are deeply uncomfortable, extraordinarily. And still choose that because the change would cause discomfort. So which one would you choose?

So next week, we're going to talk more about embracing this aspect and the growth that comes through the discomfort and sitting with it. But if you liked this episode, please share it with someone you love, and we will see you next week.