Discomfort means it's working
"When you don't know what you're doing, that means you're growing"
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‘If you want to feel secure
Do what you already know how to do.
But if you want to grow…
Go to the cutting edge of your competence,
Which means a temporary loss of security.
So, whenever you don’t quite know
What you are doing
Know
That you are growing…’
(David Viscott)
I grew up around horses and occasionally we would take said beasts to local shows at other crusty stables or to nearby regional parks for some trail riding in fresh scenery and now and again there would be a horse who was just terrified of being loaded into the trailer.
The horses we hung out with were in general very calm and docile creatures but you have to remember that we were little and they might have weighed upwards of 1,500 pounds. When a horse is scared, it is a lot. One time I loaded a horse into a trailer and it got scared in there and I ducked down into a ball as it flipped itself around and leapt over me to escape.
I was lucky to have women around me who modeled humane ways of training but let me tell you, teaching a scared horse to not only step into a trailer, but to kick it in there long enough to be transported to an unfamiliar place, and then to get back in at the end of a long day, when you can’t explain to it that it’s OK, horse, we’re taking you back to your cozy stall that I have mucked to utter spotlessness and where a nice flake of hay is a-waitin’ is a, um, process.
Basically the first step is to get the beast to just…look at the trailer. You kind of hang around and anytime the horse even glances in the general direction of the evil contraption, you love up on the horse, you put a tiara on it’s little head, you ply it with treats and smooches and you butter it the hell up. This progresses until —omg—you are standing at the open door, and maybe the horse puts its cute-ass little hoof all shiny from the pine-tar you’ve recently painted on it onto the floor of the trailer. And you just keep going and going. And it takes as long as it takes. And then after some hours, or many many sessions over lots and lots of time, the horse is all the way in, munching on some hay, chilling like it wasn’t recently convinced that you were sending it directly into the seventh circle of hell, or whatever runs through a horse’s little skull when it is asked to do something out of it’s humble horsey comfort zone.
There is another way to get a scared horse into a trailer. Can you guess? Basically, you beat it until it complies. You make it impossible for the horse to not get in. You scare the spirit out of the beast, you use force and punishment, and ok, fine, the horse did what you wanted, but you’ve blasted its self esteem into the stratosphere, and now you have a 1,500 pound beast that doesn’t trust the world around it, or the people in it, and is basically just a scared little horse-shaped shell whose experience of life is one of being on the lookout for pain and disappointment and doing whatever it can to stay safe and small and in control and there’s no joy and no celebration and definitely nary a tiara in sight.
*
And you can guess where I’m going.
In my work with people (and, well, myself), I see it over and over: there is the where we are now, and there is the where we would like to be. Here we are, sitting right here, taking furtive glances at our own personal horse trailer, sweating like hell thinking about all it will take to put our paw on the floorboards.
What approach do you think most of us take?
So many of us have big, audacious goals. We want to quit drinking for good this time. We want to finish writing the damn novel. We want to get our business up and running, we want to stake a claim right here in this life and take up all the space and we want to stop apologizing for wanting more. We want to scream and grunt and growl and kick and heave and punch and stomp. We want to rest. We want to feel good. We want to be satisfied, and proud, and safe, and at ease.
I think of all the ways I’ve tried to punish myself into a better life. It never worked. All it did was keep me in chained to the unattainable standards of perfectionism— caught in an exhausting loop of black and white thinking—instead of embracing the messy middle, which is, I’m going to say it, the only place real change happens.
I don’t want to hate myself into the trailer. I want to be kind and generous. I want to move slowly. I want to pat myself on the back, refer to myself as “mi amor.” I want the fucking tiara, even if it’s just in a make-believe ceremony between me and my dog.
When I take care of my beastly body; when I re-inhabit my physical form; when I tend to my skin, muscles, bones—I prove to myself that I matter. I am caring for that which takes up literal mass on this planet, I am planting both feet on the earth.
But it’s when I talk myself kindly toward change that I begin to trust myself. I become a person who speaks to herself as a friend. I champion myself. I am soft and easy when things take longer than I’d like (things always take longer than I’d like). I trust myself to move toward the unknown. Even though I am in an unfamiliar place, or shape, or situation, I know I’m capable of handling whatever shadows might still shiver at the periphery. I build self esteem. My actions are no longer guided by someone else’s opinion, or voice, or my own internalized programming.
Discomfort means it’s working. Discomfort is you, going to “the cutting edge of your competence,” which is what you’ve been searching for this whole damn time, you know? That fucked-up sweet spot that has you show up, over and over, that reminds you that you don’t have to get it right, you can fumble, you can make the same mistake over and over, and it’s OK, for real, because you belong here; you, sitting right there, your hand on your chest, or maybe your gut, building a relationship with that place you spent so long running from, you come back, you keep coming back, with your earnest little hooves, puff of cheeks, flutter of lips, breathing into your exquisite and utterly jagged edges, expanding toward the light, face upturned toward the sun.
SELF MADE is a newsletter for creative types with a focus on recovery, creativity and community. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, facilitator, and recovery advocate in San Francisco, CA.
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