And Other Strategies for Leaving Your Comfort Zone.

In any growth process you’re bound to encounter discomfort; it simply comes with the territory. The spiritual growth process is no different. It’s good to remind ourselves of this so we don’t get stalled once growth kicks into high gear.

What’s the secret to handling emotional discomfort so you can move forward and past it? Well, here’s what doesn’t work:

• Avoiding it. Avoidance is a form of resistance, and in case you haven’t heard, what you resist, persists. We avoid discomfort through procrastination, distraction, and focusing on anything that will take us away from it. Unfortunately, these behaviors often create pitfalls of their own by becoming new habits that don’t serve us and in fact, hold us further back. Avoiding discomfort is a sure recipe for “stuckification” (as one life coach I know calls it). Once you know discomfort accompanies growth, the last thing you want when you’re trying to grow is to get mired in muck along the way.
• Ignoring it. Pretending you’re not uncomfortable when you are, or in other words refusing to acknowledge your discomfort enough to even avoid it, is also a subtle form of resistance. Inevitably, your angst and frustration will seek an outlet and seep through cracks to find expression, maybe in areas of your life you’d prefer it didn’t.

The secret to dealing with discomfort is to get comfortable leaving your comfort zone.

Or, if you can’t get comfortable, at least get to a point of acceptance—of knowing you’ll be on a rocky road for a bit and allowing that to be the case. Knowing that discomfort goes hand in hand with growth helps, so when you’re setting a new goal, stretching to reach an important milestone, or determined to transform on the personal front, recognize you’re in for a rough ride.

In every growth process, there are points at which discomfort will peak. These, while they can be extraordinarily challenging and painful, are your best opportunities for rapid transformation, because it is precisely at these moments that you can make leaps.

These are the times to put on the wings of faith and jump.

I’m reminded of the first (okay, the only) time I went skydiving. I didn’t plan on it—it was a spur-of-the moment decision made on a business trip to Palm Springs, California. At the time, the decision to go skydiving made no sense. In hindsight, I know exactly why I jumped.

My daughter (now 13) was nine months old. I’d been either pregnant or a new mom for what seemed like forever. I hardly remembered the ambitious, smart, independent career woman and avid traveler I’d been before motherhood. I missed that woman, and I not only wanted her back, I also wanted to live her life again. I needed not just to remember her, but be her. I knew when I saw the skydiving ad in the hotel room tourist magazine that the fastest way to reconnect with what I loved about myself was not introspection or contemplation. It was action.

A quick phone call and $200 later, I was hitched to a former member of the Russian skydiving team tumbling from a small prop plane at 12,000 feet over the desert, air rushing past me at hurricane velocity, feeling totally, utterly ragingly alive.

I quite literally leaped.

To find out what happened after the leap continue reading on The Accidental Seeker.

Karen Talavera is a self-described “Accidental Seeker” who stumbled upon a non-conformist journey of self discovery, spiritual awakening and personal growth after years of living the stereotypical American dream. A writer, entrepreneur, mother and avid international traveler, she draws on the rich and often overlooked experiences of daily life to illuminate opportunities for awakening and share insightful takes on life and spirituality. She writes about these and more on her blog The Accidental Seeker. Karen has studied Advaita and self-inquiry in the tradition of  Ramana Maharshi and closely follows the teachings of Abraham-Hicks, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Deepak Chopra and other modern luminaries. Karen has been a Huffington Post blogger since 2008. Her writing has appeared there and on Divine Caroline as well as in various blogs and print publications since 2006.  She lives in Palm Beach County, Florida where she enjoys soaking up the sun and surf when she’s not either writing, dancing, or off and running on one of her many journeys.