PRACTICING: Force

FORCE? Yes, you heard me right. Force.

 

If you know me or have been reading my blog for any length of time, you know there are certain words and phrases that set my teeth on edge…

…that bring out “resistant Karen.”

…that elicit a “you can’t make me!”

I was getting ready to have that kind of a reaction as I watched ” F— YOU – How To Stop Screwing Yourself Over,”* which features Mel Robbins (someone I’d never heard of before). But I didn’t. I watched it two more times and still didn’t. In fact, I was…motivated. Something shifted.

In the video Mel says, “Think about what you want. Be selfish. I don’t want to it sound good to other people. What do WANT? What is it? Get it right here in your head. You know what it is…don’t analyze it to death. Just pick.”

The first two times I watched, I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted, I was more curious about my reaction to what she said and how she said it. Upon watching the video for the third time, however, in response to her question, I said, out loud, “I want my body to stop hurting so that I can enjoy working out. I want to run again.”

As Mel says in the video, it’s simple to get what you want, but it’s not easy. She says, “In any area where you want to change, there’s one fact: you’re never going to feel like it.”

Lately, it’s been a real struggle to get myself moving on a regular basis and it’s partly because my body hurts, but if I am honest, it’s also partly because I don’t feel like it. And while I believe that my physical aches and pains are a manifestation of menopause and its related anxiety and depression, I also think something else is going on…something I have more control over.

Anyway, I was intrigued by the idea of activation energy, which is defined (in science circles) as the energy that must be overcome in order for a chemical reaction to occur. Mel describes it as the physical force required to change your behavior.

She adds that the amount force required is the same, no matter what it is you want to change. All it requires is marrying a physical action to the impulse of wanting to change within five seconds. If you wait longer than that, it’s too late. This is the simple-but-not-easy part. This is where most of us pull the emergency brake.

“You have to force yourself…out of your head, past your feelings (because you’re never going to feel like it) and out of your comfort zone.”

And this is where it gets interesting, at least for me.

“Force yourself…outside your comfort zone” sets off alarm bells in Resistant Karen’s head. She doesn’t like to think about being forced anywhere, and most definitely not outside her comfort zone because she equates “comfort zone” with “healthy emotional boundaries.”

It took me 45 years to get my comfort zone/healthy emotional boundaries firmly in place and I’m NOT gonna let anything get in the way of that!

:::::::::::deeeeeeeeeep breath:::::::::::

But wait a minute. There’s a distinction to be made here.

Just because I grew up in a “discomfort zone”…

…and even as an adult, I often felt like I had to put myself in situations that were bad for me…

…I get to define my comfort zone…AND…

…going outside my comfort zone can be okay. It can help me get what I want.

So what am I doing to help me get what I want? Stay tuned…

Taken from Ellen’s latest “Hateloss Challenge” post: The definition of Comfort Zone: 1) a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk. 2) A situation or position in which a person feels secure, comfortable, or in control.

*I originally saw this on Hanlie’s blog, Ordinary Abundance, and she had some interesting things to say about it, too.