By: Gabriela Yareliz
In recent days, I have been reminded of two important principles we should always keep before us:
1. Discomfort Before Change
I was doing my morning Pilates practice, and the instructor was talking me through how to get into a position that requires a lot of balance. It was hard. It felt weird. I wasn’t exactly looking the way she looked on the screen. I was sighing, a bit exasperated, and trying to figure out how to modify the position, when she said: before moments of change and transition, it’s ok to experience moments of discomfort. I heard that and thought about how true that is. Whether it’s starting a new job, growing something or pushing ourselves beyond our current comfort zone– it’s not rare to feel the discomfort that comes along with it, but this is how we achieve what we had not done before. It is how we can be that which we were not, yesterday.
2. No Say
There is a line of philosophy (Adlerian psychology) that states that trauma has no say in who we become. It’s very opposite the Freudian philosophy often followed by counselors and people who try to justify the present with blaming something or someone in the past.
I read this quote, and agreed so strongly with it:
“We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.” The Courage to Be Disliked
As we move forward in this new year, let us keep these two reminders before us. If we do, we will be quite unstoppable.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 