I once heard someone say that you can’t be comfortable and grow at the same time.
If I’m being generous, I think what they were trying to say is that growth isn’t comfortable, that learning new ways of being will stretch you. Stretching doesn’t always feel good in the moment – and I know this to be true from spending hours on a yoga mat.
Or maybe the sentiment was that you can’t be safe and grow at the same time. Either way, safe and comfortable are two of my favorite feelings, but I’m also deeply committed to growth. So…
Might explain why, when I heard this said, I had a visceral, full body repulsion to the idea that safety or comfort and growth are somehow opposing forces in the world. I suspect that my disdain comes from years of seeking safety after living through trauma. So much of my growth took place through actively seeking safer spaces. My lived experience tells me that it’s infinitely more difficult to grow and discover or explore if you – and your body – don’t feel safe or comfortable first.
Letting your body know it is safe is the starting place. Safety looks like approval rather than judgement, satisfaction rather than deprivation, a steady pace rather than working to exhaustion. It requires checking in with your body and fulfilling its needs, rather than pushing it to its limits. The reward for this is that you get to feel safe with you – you learn to trust yourself to be the safe place from which to go out and discover the world.
And you don’t have to do this alone. There is so much magic in allowing someone else to hold that space for you, to encourage you, and to invite you back on the path to yourself. Letting yourself be held can be one of the most magical ways of welcoming growth.