The growth in discomfort

As I sat on the couch avoiding direct eye contact with the woman across from me, I glued my eyes to the clock, shocked by how utterly slow the second hand was moving. The woman kept asking me how I felt, asking me if I felt under control, or if I felt anxious. 

I was 10 years old trying to grasp the definition of anxiety let alone answer whether or not I experienced it. 

My first therapy session was anything but riveting, far from comfortable, and yet my parents told me I had to come back the next week.

Over the months, however, my uneasiness started to fade and I developed a lesson that has stuck with me today - discomfort prompts growth. 

The relevance of this revelation at the time allowed me to better handle the test anxiety I was experiencing in elementary school. Instead of allowing myself to get wrapped up in the pressures of time during exams, I reminded myself to embrace the discomfort and treat tests as a challenge.

And in 2012, when my parents filed for divorce, this realization again proved valuable. Although my sister and I felt extremely loved by each individual parent, it was clear to us from a very young age that they were not happy under the same roof. Thus, this decision actually provided some relief but not without great change. 

Life had yet again handed me a novel situation and my instinctive reaction was to be scared.

The family lifestyle I had grown accustomed to for 14 years was broken and I was entirely lost.

For the months following the divorce, I felt a potent sense of dejavu from the days I was stuck in my elementary school classroom forced to complete a test I was unsure of how to pass. 

Change seemed distant, unattainable, and unwanted.

I knew, however, that being scared of what’s to come was by no means the way I wanted to live my life.

So as I envisioned my very first and very last day at therapy, 14 year old me was trying to figure out how exactly I made this transition from consumed by fear to willing to change. 

Unfortunately, I did not discover some step by step instructions I had followed. 

I did, however, remember one thing that I did - I allowed myself to focus on what I could change and accept what I couldn’t. 

By accepting the situation as is, sadness and all, I begin to approach the divorce with a sense of calmness. I became less threatened by the fact that I couldn’t glue my family back together or that I couldn’t make my parents or myself heal any quicker.

I was no longer scared of the things I could no longer control but found the beauty in letting them go and turning my attention elsewhere.

I had found the growth in the discomfort. 

And elsewhere, for me, included school, dance class, piano class, and my journal. All of these places, activities, or objects allowed me to keep my mind happy as my heart healed. Everytime I struggled to welcome the outcomes of the divorce, I began to study harder, attend more classical indian dance classes, perform at more piano recitals, and add to my writing outlet. 

This was not by any means a sort of distraction to allow me to run away from my pain. 

Rather, these passions of mine showed me that there are two kinds of changes in life -one that we cannot control, such as my parent’s divorce that I had experienced, and one that we can take charge of like developing passion. 

To this very day, the latter kind of change has helped to develop a sense of confidence in persevering when faced with the former kind. 

And all it starts with is deciding what to focus on.