Learnings from being pushed out of my comfort zone

We learn a lot from being pushed out of our comfort zone. What have you been learning from our current situation?

[Feeling overwhelmed right now? If you don't have the capacity to be reflective, know I’m sending you love and skip this post.]

Each week brings new lessons. For me, that’s included:

1.) If I’m feeling impatient, I have neglected one of my basic needs. When I’m taking care of myself, I show up as my best, most patient self. When I notice I’m frustrated, I pause and check in with myself. I feel into my body and identify my needs at that moment. Often, I need to eat, take a mental break, or sleep.

2.) Communicating hour after hour, day after day, even if it's remotely, is exhausting for me. During social distancing, I’ve had more opportunities to connect with people, just remotely, instead of in person.

I thought: Great! Connection is one of my focuses for 2020, so I’ll take this silver lining and run with it.

It has been wonderful to be connected and my introverted self has loved the ease of jumping on a call/video chat, rather than having to prepare for an outing.

I loved it so much that I lined up virtual work sessions and meetings, one after another, and then filled other times with personal catchups.

I quickly found that without quiet time to restore myself, I completely burned out. I thrive on these conversations, and I get emotionally exhausted by them. Now, I’m balancing the time I’m connecting with others and quiet time to myself.

3.) I feel better when I’m not leaning into everything.

Dani Gardner gave me the advice to “lean back”. [Are you leaning forward right now? Pause and lean back. See how that feels different?]

I often encourage things forward. Since hearing that phrase, I am trying to catch myself and lean back.

It is crazy to notice just how much I do this. It feels so different to lean back in my seat and see how I show up differently.