In facing challenges, our protective layers come up in abundance. Whether it is day to day stress or a big event that really throws our balance and rhythm, we can easily feel lost in emotions and reactions that come up. This is often when our unhelpful patterns are reinstated, and surface with an aggressive pull to return to the familiar, what’s comfortable, what’s numbing or distracting.

But if we can take even a little bit of space from the momentum of what’s going on and recognise the powerful opportunity before us to put new practices into play, to try out a new way, to allow ourselves to be really vulnerable to feel discomfort to feel pain and trust the deeper process that this will allow. This can then become a transformative experience. Our daily routine and practices to keep us well and keep us present are essential and so valuable.

To use this developing trust in who we really are, in our wisest, truest selves, and see everything else as an opportunity to practice brining more of this into the world, we shift our perspective and our attachment to the immediate problems before us. We still feel, we still are engaged and affected, but we grow from it rather than being damaged by it. It becomes something that can propel us forward rather than hold us back.

If we can set the intention for each day, especially going into days and experiences that we know will be uncomfortable for us, and commit to using our skills in self-care and self-support in the immediacy of each experience, then the world becomes a playground, our investment in outcomes decreases which can be really empowering. The focus and value becomes on self-nurturance and reclaiming authenticity.

From this we naturally are at our best, and the outcomes we are trying so hard to achieve from a more egoic place might organically unfold – or we might realise they simply don’t matter that much anymore.

The perspective of gratitude for these opportunities is empowering. It enables us to own the experience, our part in it, and even through discomfort have a sense of excitement to get to play with a new way of being and responding. Not being perfect at it or changing a pattern quickly, but deepening our self-awareness and patiently allowing ourselves more choice in how we are responding to life, and which parts of us we choose to grow.