081: Friction Could Be Exactly What Your Personal Growth and Longevity Needs
It's one thing to have calloused hands.
But a calloused heart...that's something entirely different - especially if it's become more calloused with age.
The common cause could be none other than "friction."
Calloused hands are typically the result of friction produced by hard work, effort, expended energy.
A calloused heart, on the other hand, could be the result of not dealing with the relational, emotional, or spiritual friction in your life.
How many years have you spent creating, avoiding, or generally denying the friction in your life?
And aging doesn’t give you a hard-pass.
"There will be friction everywhere in life. Learn how to lean into it instead of running away from it. Try not to become the person at an old age who doesn’t want to change their ways because they don’t like the friction of learning something new."
Personal growth and longevity rely on the presence, impact, and opportunities of the friction and tension you encounter
In physical movement resistance-based friction is what creates strength and muscle tone.
The same applies to the resistance produced by the friction you encounter within your life relationally, emotionally, or spiritually.
In essence, friction produces the calloused-hand capacity to handle what life throws at you while also keeping your heart soft and un-calloused.
- Embrace friction as a pathway to growth
- Evaluate friction as a means to heal
- Enhance friction as leverage for change
Embrace the friction in your life and grow from it
Comfort zones rarely produce the growth you desire in your life.
That's why when practically possible you must step out of your comfort zones and welcome some growth producing friction on occasion.
- If it's a relational comfort zone - own your contribution to the friction by being the first to apologize, taking the first step towards reconciliation, or letting go of your need to please.
- If it's an emotional comfort zone - acknowledge your "feels" but don't let them be an excuse for not taking action.
- If it's a physical comfort zone - test your limits within reason while also sustaining your momentum through some form of movement.
Evaluate the friction you've encountered and decide to heal
We're accustomed to seek healing from some source outside of ourselves.
And there are certainly occasions when physical and emotional healing are best achieved with outside assistance.
Even so, healing is typically a journey that begins with a personal decision.
When friction comes into play and creates the need for healing it's useful to pause and evaluate the source before you seek a solution.
Evaluate the friction by asking:
- What is my responsibility for it?
- How can I make improvements?
- When will I know healing is underway and/or has occurred?
Healing on the other side of friction begins when you do.
Enhance the friction you're experiencing by using it as leverage to change
If you're unbending or set-in-your-ways change doesn't come easy.
Welcoming some friction into your life could create some essential energy that leverages your unyielding nature into change.
The easy (or stubborn) path isn't necessarily the best path to growth and change.
Remember, comfort zones aren't typically growth zones.
- Welcome some friction on occasion.
- Look for opportunities to use moments or experiences of friction as a catalyst for personal change.
- Give the friction space to play out - it could be less valuable to your growth and if that's the case let it go!
Those friction producing experiences in life could contain the elements of growth and longevity that sustain you as you age
- Embrace friction as a pathway to growth
- Evaluate friction as a means to heal
- Enhance friction as leverage for change
Press on...
Eddie