Have you ever had such a clear vision of who you wanted to be that you felt as if you were unstoppable in realizing it?
Man, I sure have.
I have it right now.
It might be because my body is still tense and tight after a workout and a cold shower.
I feel alive.
I know who I want to be and how I want to act.
It's my clear vision of living out the Soul Control I was designed for.
THAT's where I'm headed.
THAT's where I hope you will get to as well.
There are times we must persist and keep on doing the good things, right?
We establish the good habits of what we want to do as we become more and more the person we want and know we can be.
Yet life has a way of throwing us curve balls.
It throws off our timing as we swing.
And if we aren't paying attention to the way the ball is coming our way, with its spin and its course toward the catcher's mitt, we will swing too early and miss.
There are times we must not just do the good things that move us forward, but we also must resist the bad things that will hold us back.
Resist
My body craves comfort.
Every morning when it's time to get up, my bed feels so amazingly comfortable that it makes it difficult to want to get out of bed.
When I take a hot shower, I feel as if I could stand there for hours, unmoving, letting the water flow over my body, warming and soothing and comforting me with the tantalizing sting of the heat.
When I'm eating, sometimes I amaze myself by making something extra delicious, and I have a hard time not shoveling that food into my mouth too quickly. I eat until I'm so full I can barely move from the table.
My body craves these comfortable moments.
Yet If I never get out of bed in the morning because I'm comfortable, I will not become the person I am designed to be.
If I never get out of the hot shower, I will not take any action toward the person God created me to be.
If I always eat to being stuffed, I will become MORE of a person, but not the type of person I want to be!
In these moments (and others), I must resist in order to realize my potential.
Seek Discomfort
I have learned that it's important for me to seek out discomfort on a regular basis so that I can make forward progress toward gaining Soul Control.
If I want to become who I was meant to be, I cannot simply stay comfortable.
Sometimes I have to get uncomfortable.
Now, I do not perpetually live in discomfort.
I feel as if that would be a huge disruption to my body and my nervous system, and I'm not ready for that type of treatment (or mistreatment) of myself.
Yet I do see it as training.
When I workout in the morning, I am training myself.
My body wants to stay comfortable and not get moving, at first.
Something happens in my mind, though, after I begin my workout.
When I first start, I have to stretch my muscles a little bit.
Then I begin to use them a little bit.
For me, when I do my first set of pushups, I hit my typical max of 20 pushups when the burn begins.
Yet I have learned that this first set is only just waking my body up.
I have learned to move on to my set of 20 squats to wake up my legs as well.
Then I do 5 pullups and hold the last one while I do 5 leg raises.
At this point, each muscle group has told my brain that it's tired and feeling uncomfortable.
There were times that I listened to it, and I stopped there, thinking I had completed a simple workout.
But I did not stretch my muscles for growth.
I have learned to resist the initial message from my muscles, and to begin a second set.
On the second set of pushups, I go slower, feeling the muscles stretch with the next set, feeling the swell of the blood flows into my arms.
I focus on each area then, allowing my body time to adjust and break past the initial comfort barrier.
I seek discomfort in my workouts.
Microdose Adversity
I follow one particular man on Instagram who has a jiu-jitsu gym in Washington.
He talks about the mental strength he has learned from the sport, yet he also demonstrates and talks about other ways he develops that mental toughness.
Ice baths and cold exposure.
You may have just rolled your eyes, but I will stand by the benefits of them!
For this guy in Washington, he uses ice baths to start off his day in a very uncomfortable way.
When he wakes up, he rolls out of bed and grabs his towel as he heads outside for a quick dip.
He takes a few deep breaths and then steps in.
Then he immediately submerges his entire body from toe to head, beneath the surface.
For him, his goal is to remain in control of his body's reactions the entire time.
Our bodies, before training in cold water, will initially react violently to cold water.
We gasp for air and tighten up when exposed to cold water.
You may be able to relate when you first start the shower and you get the cold water from the pipes hitting you.
It's like that, but worse.
After you have trained yourself with the cold water for at least a week, you can begin to control different aspects of your body's physiological responses.
You can control the gasp.
You can control the breathing.
You can control the shivers.
I have done this; that's how I know.
Remember, this is first thing in the morning, right after those blissful moments of lying in bed feeling so comfortable you don't want to get up.
Remember those moments?
Yet this habit is resisting that comfort and intentional seeking discomfort so that you can move toward that desired Soul Control.
Yes, it's very uncomfortable getting into the ice water.
Every. single. time.
But that's the point.
It's training for the rest of the day.
He calls it Microdosing Adversity.
Giving yourself a small dose of adversity (or discomfort) to remind yourself that you can do hard things.
It also is usually the most uncomfortable part of the entire day.
And when you start the day with it, it's training your brain to help you realize that you can overcome anything if you can overcome this.
Is This What You So Feared?
Seneca was known for seeking discomfort regularly.
Once a quarter he would intentionally eat stale bread and bland rice, only drinking water.
He would wear uncomfortable clothes and not take care of his looks for 3-4 days in a row.
He would ask himself at the end of it, "Is this what you so feared?"
How many times do we get caught up in being afraid of not having anything to eat?
Or not having anything to wear?
Or not having the best place to live?
We are secretly afraid to lose the comforts we have worked so hard to gain.
Yet when we test ourselves with our food quality or our clothing choices or the amount of flavor we drink throughout the day, we are resisting the urge for comfort.
We are training ourselves to gain another level of control over who we are designed to be.
Is it fun?
No.
But we can call it training and practice and it takes on a new level of enjoyment all on its own.
Success Breeds Softness
If you have become soft and comfortable, the way to regain control is to seek out discomfort.
Ryan Holiday says, "Success breeds softness. Make yourself do unpleasant things to gain the upperhand on your soul."
Will you step toward discomfort?
Will you microdose adversity?
Will you begin to take steps toward Soul Control?
Seek out discomfort so that you can gain the upperhand on your soul.
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