4 Steps to Mastering Growth with Conscious Connection
When you have a strategy for self-regulation, it makes growth feel safe. These four simple steps will help you return to resilience the next time you’re off your game.
CULTIVATE CONSCIOUS CONNECTION, STEP-BY-STEP:
CURIOSITY
AWARENESS
ACCEPTANCE
SURRENDER
1. When walking through a trigger, your greatest ally is curiosity.
Treat whatever you’re going through as though you’re some kind of mad scientist, trying to assess what’s at the CORE of your quandary: this helps you dissociate from the discomfort just enough to truly get to the bottom of it.
2. Write down what you are FEELING and what NEEDS are alive for you.
Use the feelings and needs lists, which are located on my resources page, to assess. DO NOT SKIP this step. Needs and wants are very different things, so you’ll want to make sure you’re pulling from the needs list.
3. Once you’ve named your feelings and needs, take note of how those SIT with you.
What does it feel like in your body to have those needs and those feelings? If you are noticing signs of relief (opening in the chest, feeling melty and good), this is a sign of acceptance. You accept how you feel. Great, move on to step 4!
But what if you’re noticing any tightness, resistance, or shame? Never fear! This is also normal. I’d like you to close your eyes and lean into the discomfort a little bit. Where does it feel uncomfortable in your body? Does this feeling move at all? Is it stationary? How does it feel like it’s threatening your livelihood, if at all? How long does it linger? Just notice. See if you can accept how it feels within your body. This is what we call ‘holding space.’ Just allow it to be. “It is what it is! And that’s okay.” Use that mantra if you need to, say it out loud: it is what it is. and that’s okay.
Once you start to feel yourself softening, once you start to feel the relief that acceptance brings, move on to step 4.
4. Surrender.
This is sort of advanced, but the gist is trust. It’s the act of acknowledging that not only is it “okay” to feel the way you feel, but that it will not be the way you feel forever. Feelings are fluid. They move.
Trust that you have (or will find) the tools to move through this with grace, to not let this hold you down or block you on the road to achieving your goals. Trust that the powers that be—whether your faith lies in science or the spiritual—will not let you suffer so long as you ask for the guidance you need. Trust that the acceptance you’ve just learned to cultivate can be applied to a much broader scope. You can trust yourself to hold space for your feelings, your needs, your process, for as long as it takes.
Trust in your mind, body, and spirit’s ability to heal. And then let go.