Wonder where the real growth happens? When you do something that feels counter-intuitive to you. Much like this saying, when you are fearful and the fear has got your good and solid in its hold – the most important thing you must do is let it go and move away from it.
Anything else you do, put simply, gives it energy and keeps it alive within you. And so to achieve what you are focusing on you have to turn away from what you know, what gives you comfort, what makes you feel safe as this is what is preventing you from moving towards your intention.
Think of it like this, lets take your favourite food as an example. You have a particular dish you like and you tend to gravitate towards choosing this item and even more so when you are presented with a menu of dishes where most of them are things you haven’t tried before. More than likely if someone asked you why you don’t want to try something else you would probably answer with a version similar to … “Because I am not sure if I will like it”, “Or I might not like it and then what?”.
Now ask yourself this question, do you recall the first time you tried your favourite dish? How did you know this was going to be your favourite, let alone like it, before you tried it? Imagine if you hadn’t tried it. What opportunity would you have missed?
So, how do you get yourself to try something new again? What could you change about your perspective to help you with this? What if you saw “new” dishes / experiences as just that. An opportunity to experience something new, to be able to experience it yourself to know how you truly find it. And if you find you don’t want to repeat it – perhaps its not a waste but rather an experience that helped you become clearer in knowing yourself. Or better yet imagine its the best thing ever (…. so far!) and you tried it 🙂
And so the self-exploring gift today is just that – the next opportunity that comes your way to try something you haven’t tried before (and not necessarily not only food!) – grab the opportunity with both hands and keep in mind the following:
1. Hold the experience without any expectation. In other words try to not expect anything from it.
2. Be present to your thoughts and feelings.
3. Allow yourself to just be there and notice how you are experiencing the moment.
4. Be curious about what expectations or comparisons do come up. Even though you would of tried not to have any initial expectations they will come up during the experience.
5. Reflect on what comes up for you after the experience.
May the new beginnings be plentiful 🙂