Is This Growth or Am I Falling Apart? The discomfort of growing pains

Welcome to this mini episode where we name the “good discomfort” of growth and why trying to fix it too soon blocks expansion. We share how embodiment, not mindset alone, helps hold paradox—being content and still wanting more—while you move between identities.

• naming the spiral of upward growth
• why old tools stop working during expansion
• the urge to fix versus the need to feel
• mindset as bypass and how it keeps women stuck
• practicing posture, positioning and embodiment
• holding contentment and desire at the same time
• zooming out to spot familiar patterns
• giving language, permission and orientation in coaching

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Transcript

Naming The Discomfort

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I am uncomfortable and I do not like it. I am being stressed and stretched, and I can tell that I'm being pulled into a new capacity. But it feels almost exactly the same as a spiral. And I'm spiraling up, not out, not down, but it still feels like I'm spiraling. The things that used to work are not working, but I don't yet have an embodied sense of a new way. I don't like it. I don't like it. There is too much to feel and not enough to fix. I want to do something. I want to I want to be able to think my way out of this one. I want to problem solve it. I want to have an action to take right now that will fix it. But that would stop the growth. And so I'm leaning in to the to the discomfort because this is the right kind of discomfort.

Old Tools Stop Working

SPEAKER_00 2:23

This is the good kind of discomfort. This is the like lifting a heavy weight that I haven't lifted before. This is stretching myself to a new flexibility that I haven't had to flex before. This is holding more in a new posture that I haven't had to do before. And my muscles are tense and sore and twitchy, and I don't like it. It is not comfortable. It doesn't feel fun. I feel insecure and vulnerable and needy. And I want to run back to my cave. You're

Choosing The Right Kind Of Hard

SPEAKER_00 3:31

also not into a new embodiment. You're also not into this place where it feels easy or practiced or like a piece of your identity. It feels like you don't know who you are anymore, but in the good way, you are no longer who you were. But you're also still in the process of becoming. And it feels, it feels like a lot of sensation and a lot of discomfort and a lot of movement and stretching. And I feel like I'm being pulled in a million different directions. And it is requiring me to hone in my attention, my energy, my emotion. I noticed myself this morning trying to outthink what I needed to feel. I was trying to like mentally, you know, have some sort of mindset shift when like that's not what's happening. In fact, a lot of times mindset shifts are exactly what keep women stuck because you feel this discomfort, you feel this angst, you feel this being stretched and pulled and stressed. And you talk yourself back into dissociation or repression, or

Lost Between Identities

SPEAKER_00 4:58

I'm fine, everything's great. I love this. I'm so grateful for my life. My life is beautiful. And that's exactly what makes you miss out on this next version, on this next iteration. I'm still figuring out how to hold these, not even just duality, it because there's more than just two, like this multifaceted thing where there's so much that I want and need and desire, and yet I'm also so content. I have everything I need, and I'm so content. I couldn't possibly ask for more, and yet I want more. And whenever I'm in these seasons, I find myself feeling misunderstood by everyone and everything, including myself. And isn't it wild to just be fully dynamically alive? It's just, it's not always pleasant to be present, and like this is good stuff. Like I know it's good because I've gone through these so many times, and I have the immense, immense pleasure and gift and opportunity to watch and be with women while they go through this, and that has been wild for me because now I've seen it from the outside, and so I have a new perspective on it, and so sometimes I just have to like pull myself out of the weeds

Mindset Limits And Women’s Stuckness

SPEAKER_00 6:40

and see myself from this above view and be like, Oh, this is what's happening, this is what's happening. This week I've had so many clients where our coaching sessions didn't solve anything, it didn't solve anything, it didn't fix anything, but it gave language to the thing, it gave permission to the thing, it validated the thing, not in not in a victimizing way, but in a here's here's what is happening, and here is the path before you, even if the path is foggy, even if there's no new steps to do, here's the thing that you're holding, and here's how we're gonna hold it, here's how you're gonna hold it. Because sometimes when you don't know what to do next, the thing you need to find is a posture and a positioning and an embodiment because that's what's going to lead you into the thing.