The reality of change: it ain’t easy.
And sometimes all of your thoughts about said change leave you with tears running down your face in public.
Change is amazing AND hard. And we ALL tend to avoid it for that reason.
Our brains are wired for safety. When something is new & different, our brains get protective AF.
Go back.
Turn around!
THREAT!
Danger ahead!
This is from YEARS of wiring, like I’m talking back to caveman days. (Google it.)
It wants us to do what we know. What is safe and normal.
In other words:
DO NOT CHANGE anything.
REMAIN the same!
Which is exactly why right now my brain is offering me these thoughts among others:
Let’s go back to STL.
I want to go back home [so that I don’t have to deal with the hard parts of change not only for myself but with my kids].
The best & also not super easy thing for me to do to work through this transition is accept ALL of the emotions without judging myself for feeling them. This takes awareness & compassion. Which if you know the brain, the brain wants to judge! But I can’t be mad at myself for wanting to turn around & go home AND process the sadness.
So I remind myself, nothing has gone wrong here.
During certification I learned about feeling ALL the feelings & how it is like carrying a heavy bag (of emotions) on your shoulder for as long as it takes. It is a learned skill but once you nail it, you can change your relationship with yourself and with those around you. Less reactive. More observant.
The reality for most of us is, we want to be happy ALL of the time so we avoid discomfort that may lead to growth & achieving our dreams. But what if we accepted that there is a balance of both negative and positive emotions - that is what our human experience is about.
You wouldn’t know happiness without experiencing sadness.
You can’t feel joy without knowing pain.
The goal is humanness. And that human experience involves LOTS of contrast on purpose.
I am choosing humanness over happiness.
Life isn’t meant to be JUST rainbows & unicorns .
What have you been avoiding because you don’t want to feel discomfort?
Or resisting because you think you should be happy 100% of the time?