Your Growth Edge

Embodiment is the ability of the body and mind to work in concert with one another.

The body receives information a half a second faster and sends the information up to the brain to process.

The taking in of new information, assimilating the new ideas into established way of thinking and then moving the body into applying the concepts into new behavior patterns.

This will be clunky.

Why?

You have no concept of what this looks like or feel like because you’ve never done it before.

Learning a new skill is creating new neural pathways in your mind.

What you do have an understanding on is when things are hard, having old beliefs about yourself in learning something new can impact how quickly or if you learn the skill at all.

Beliefs like, “you’re not good enough”, “how dare you try something new”, “who are you for doing something different, “who do you think you are” may be swirling around your mind.

These beliefs can crop up and interfere with how you learn and grow.

They detract you from doing something different because those beliefs are meant to keep you small and keep you doing the same thing.

Learning something new requires your body to do things differently, but your mind doesn’t want to you to because it requires too much of your energy to do so.

Learning something new creates stress in your body.

When you experience stress, it’s uncomfortable and being uncomfortable doesn’t feel good.

This physiological response is meant to keep you safe. We are not hardwired to grow.

Learning something new requires you to practice, face the uncertainty, be comfortable with being uncomfortable when trying on something new and face those old beliefs about yourself.

But, on the other side of learning the new skill is how your body takes over.

Your body integrates the skill and the skill becomes apart of who you are.

The skill is a reflex which you no longer think about, mentally process or will your body to do.

The body takes over and you can be in the moment of doing because it is who you are rather than what you have to do.

Getting the steps wrong, trying again, evaluating what worked and what didn’t and taking the next step.

As a pet parent, this may be the first time you are introduced to strategies that are beyond the basic manners of sit, wait and down.

When your dog is showing signs of fear or is biting others, working through ways of helping your dog change his or her emotional response goes beyond what your dog does, but how you show up and what you do to put the practice into motion.

As you can see, changing emotional responses takes time not just for your dogs, but you too.

Your growth edge will be exposed and when the going gets tough, how do you respond?