Discomfort is Essential
Hard and impactful changes bring the most discomfort.
Maybe you are huffing and puffing to get to the end of an exercise class; maybe you are trying not to eat ALL the cookies; maybe you are working on changing a long standing bad habit.
These situations are all uncomfortable and create real feelings of distress in your body and mind. And yet, if you can sit in the discomfort, it will pass. What are you learning if you are able to do this? Perseverance. That you CAN in fact live through it. That you are stronger than you thought. That you can expect more of yourself. That a food or exercise is not in control, you are.
My work in this vein was around curbing my sugar habit. This took me years to do - far longer than many of the other changes I made, and was the one that brought up the most emotion. I have found that the changes that are the hardest or scariest to make are the ones I most needed. I had to break up with sugar.
I had been using sweets as a self soothing mechanism for decades. They helped me power through the late afternoon and evening flurry of activities of my children, they gave me something to look forward to, they calmed me down, and they tasted good! It was such an ingrained habit that until I started working on changing my eating habits, I did not realize it was a problem.
The first thing I did was change the portion size of what I was eating. Over time I also stopped bringing the cookies home (because time and time again I ate too many, despite my best intentions), then finding a substitute that I did not overeat (dark chocolate), and now I usually just have the chocolate, or maybe some toast with peanut butter. I still cannot bring store bought cookies in the house because I still overeat them. But, I do not miss them when I do not have them; I no longer feel the addictive pull towards them that I had for so many years.
Changing our eating habits to exclude foods that we have been relying on for emotional support is a common issue for people looking to lose weight. In order to get continued benefits from exercise, we have to ask our bodies to perform at a higher level.
Can you suck it up and pedal, run or lift for another 30 seconds or a minute? Of course you can.
Can you decide that one cookie is enough, stop buying them, find substitutes, move away from them, remind yourself of your WHY, distract yourself, or talk to yourself while the feeling passes? Of course you can.
Can you give up scrolling mindlessly through social media because you know you are wasting precious time? Of course you can.
Every challenge is a chance to practice your skills.
