A Joyous Perspective on the line between excitement and anxiety: When you get flopped out of the box

 

People love small, cozy spaces where they feel safe and protected. 

Shrinking reality to a familiar size makes us feel safe and in control. It is an unusual person who really enjoys suspense in the business of living. Most of us don't seek out anxiety or unrest. We want to hurry up, settle things, and 'get there.'  

Most of us believe we know our limits. When we face something that stretches us, we sense an emotion that fires up our reaction centers and influences our behaviors. It's hard to discern between anxiety and excitement. We have this sense that something is stirring, but is it positive or negative? Our stomach is jittery, and our heart is pounding...

Did you know that where you are is not who you are?

If you are like most people, you come to believe that you are your limit. It is very scary to leave the familiar because change feels like you would no longer know who you are. The place that you settled into now becomes your identity, to be held onto at all costs. 

Self-limitation feels safe.

Then life happens, and you are pushed out of your safe space, and there is panic and desperation that soon emerges. How will you ever be okay without the feeling of what you have known? Even if it was not exactly the most comfortable, at least it was yours. You might not feel ready to cope with radically different experiences, yet you know that others have and do. Humans have demonstrated a fairly high ability to adapt and cope. But as Jung proclaimed, "What we resist persists." You are first faced with the challenge of continuing to insist that things should not be the way they are and that happiness is only possible under certain conditions.

Resilience is in your genes if you stopped insisting otherwise.

In fact, radical changes in life can often be surprising in how liberating they can feel. Suddenly you find out that your desperate circumstances are a kind of gift. You would never have taken those new steps if you had the option of keeping up your safe boundaries. And if you get a moment to stop your lamenting and posting about it, you might actually find that your anxiety has transformed into a feeling of excitement. You connect with this radical change and find that the energy it brings is the glee at being let out of the prison of predictability.

Apparently, there is a center in you that wants to grow and experience new things, 

even if they are a little risky.

This part of you does not love shrinking to fit into a space, no matter how safe. It wants to stretch past the limitations made of past fears and injuries. If feels excited when opportunities come up in spite of the normal anxieties. There are some fears, but they are overshadowed by the buoyant lifting of your spirit, and you embrace what you know is right for you and your journey to growth. You become alive, alert, and aware. Confidence replaces shrinking.

Where you are is not who you are.

There may be a larger self that you were meant to expand into, past the limits that your family, friends, or even you might have thought possible. At the center of the challenge, ask yourself:

"In my center, does this feel like mine to do?"

If the answer is yes, it doesn't matter if you aren't sure about the fear you feel.

Growth requires being scared sometimes. 

Growth puts you outside of your self-imposed limitations.

You'll be amazed that you ever agreed to stay in so small a place.