wildly uncomfortable

This phrase has been running around my head for a while now.

Wildly Uncomfortable…
And, I'm not sure why, because currently, I’m not wildly uncomfortable at all.
But this past year has been full of wildly uncomfortable moments as I’ve navigated moving abroad and selling a house from a different continent, recovering from borderline burnout while building an online business.
And this doesn’t even touch on unlearning old stories about money, my worth, my value, and discovering what joy looks and feels like for me on a daily basis.
Not to mention the ongoing grief that accompanied ridding myself of most of my possessions, letting go of my dog, my support system, stable income, and everything familiar in my life. Then learning how to live in a foreign country, navigate everyday tasks, learn how to live alone, how to recognize my misery and move, yet again, to a different country and start all over again.

It’s been huge, crazy, mind boggling and exhausting and exquisitely fulfilling.

What makes me wildly uncomfortable now, isn’t what made me wildly uncomfortable a year ago.

What makes me wildly uncomfortable now is when people ask me to explain myself. It’s not because I can’t. I can talk for hours about why I moved, how I chose to live in Italy, why I chose to move to the Netherlands, how my business is doing, how I can make a living “working online” and so on.
What makes this so uncomfortable is that most people, regardless of how I explain it, do not understand it. They can’t comprehend how this could play out for them.

Most of the time, we aren’t aware of what we truly desire. So, when I share with people that yes, I have a gift for acupuncture but didn’t desire to practice it anymore, they can’t comprehend how I could give it up. Or why I would choose to rent over owning a home because I “won’t have anything to show for it down the road.” Or how I can be happy living alone and being single. Or how working so few hours can possibly be fulfilling financially, not to mention emotionally or mentally.

We’re not used to doing things that far outside the realm of “normal.” So when I went and did ALL of those things, the people around me, closest to me, that had come to depend on me and my gifts, became wildly uncomfortable themselves.

When people I love tell me they’re afraid that I won’t “make it” living the way I do, it’s not because they don’t have faith in me. It's because what I’m doing, how I’m choosing to live, makes them wildly uncomfortable. Yes, they love me. Yes, they want what’s best for me. But too often, we approach what is best for someone else from the lens of what we think is the best for ourselves. But that’s not true.

It's my job, my purpose, to live my life in a way that brings joy and impact. It’s not my job to make sure that those around me are comfortable with my choices. So, next time I make you uncomfortable with what I’m doing, ask yourself, why.
If it’s possible for me to move twice during a global pandemic, recover from burnout, start an online business, leave everything familiar behind, navigate new countries, cultures and homes, what is possible for you?
Will it make you wildly uncomfortable? Probably.
Change is rarely comfortable.
But is being wildly uncomfortable worth the joy? Absolutely.
Maybe it’s time you get wildly uncomfortable for a bit…