Stepping Out and Stretching
Stepping outside a comfort zone, stretching ourselves to be, think, or live life from a new perspective can be vastly different depending on who we are, the way we take risks, do we push our own boundaries, do we try new things or stick with the tried and true that has worked for us in the past. All of these contribute to what it looks like to step outside our home box.
It can be subtle or bold, small, or large, a yes versus a no – and all of these can cause a shift in the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Even the smallest of items can prove to offer the most impactful aha moment. As we ourselves work to stretch beyond so-called limits, broaden our boundaries or our mind. By creating a comfort-style zone through becoming more familiar with the new ways of being, seeing, or learning, we expand what is norm to us.
The stretching can be in life, in business, or within our own way of perceiving life within us, life we connect with, or that which is completely external to who and what we are in the moment. If you are a fantasy style reader or a Harry Potter fan, you may have heard about shapeshifting from the perspective of a person shifting to animal or the opposite an animal to person. However, shape-shifting can be done through stepping beyond our normal way of seeing or believing ourselves to be. Becoming another version of who we are by identifying the characteristics or attributes for the growth we want to experience within.
It can be reached by a change to our schedule, the distance traveled, a shift to our mindset, or the resistance we find in ourselves as we work to accept the flow pouring into our life while doing our best not to get into the push or pull fight that often materializes as a struggle for control takes center stage. Who will win – ourselves or nature? For the natural order of life comes in ebbs and flows, a wave of sorts that we can ride with grace or push against only to realize the one we are in a fight with is ourselves as we strive to become someone new by embodying the life lessons acquired along the way.
Stepping out and stretching is rarely about another person or being – it is becoming another version of ourselves one step or leap at a time. The nine lives of a cat are often viewed from the health challenges it has had occur in its life, but it can also be the number of vast life experiences one has had in their life by taking on a new job, a new role, a new lifestyle, a new way of thinking, or a way of being to name a few. It can be akin to shedding of skins familiar in many reptiles as the old that no longer serves is released to allow the latest to surface giving ourselves a unique vantage point on our role in life.
Where are you stretching? Do you find yourself resisting, pushing, or walking with grace beside it? A phrase someone shared with me recently in a class brought a new awareness to the surface and maybe it with help you on your journey too…what we resist, persists. Take a look at your life where has this shown up – and is it persisting in different ways or more frequently?
