Lisa said something profound last night that inspired tonight’s post.
It was the eve of her monthly weigh in after a one month intermediate fast combined with brutal weight training and cardio works outs that I know have pushed her to the boundaries of her mental, physical and spiritual limits.
As I watched her fidget with her hands, talk like she’d had way too much of the cocoa bean, and ponder what the scale and calipers would tell her about the results of the last month of gut wrenching work, she uttered words that continue to bounce around my brain:
“I have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth I flashed back to our two week wait days, when her abdomen was often distended from hyperstimulation, she tilted her butt to one side when she sat to avoid the massive knots from all the progesterone shots, and conversation could shift from weepy despair to confident hope to hurricanes of anger in a matter of minutes.
Even when the cycles failed, it didn’t stop her from continuing to take action and get ready for another cycle.
She had become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
I had to do the same, but my discomfort was based on external things.
Like committing to maxing out the home equity line of credit to go to New Jersey for nearly a month for our last ditch effort to get Elliana.
Taking three weeks off from work where the bulk of my earnings were from commissions knowing that I would have to scramble to rebuild my business when we got back.
Hoping that one month after 9/11 that all of the talking heads on every cable station were wrong about us needing to expect more attacks.
These are the kinds of uncomfortable things infertility patients, and I guess anyone who really wants to make a major change in their lives, learns to become comfortable with.
Lisa’s discomfort paid off today with great results from her month of exercise and continued commitment to clean eating.
My discomfort paid off 10 1/2 years ago when that fateful trip to New Jersey resulted in the conception and subsequent birth of our IVF baby.
I actually enjoy moments of awkwardness now, because I know that I am probably going to grow in some way.
Seth Godin put it perfectly:
My new favorite word is ‘awkward.’…The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn’t be worth the effort.