I am Enough
What if we remembered that we are enough? What happens when we know we have choices, that things can be done differently and that we are all full of potential?
In this Podcast we share stories, experiences and tools, our own as well as others who join us to share their journey towards enoughness. We challenge cultural beliefs and patterns, and draw on the Wisdom of Nature exploring how all of this can support us in seeing our wholeness and create new possibilities.
I am Enough
Capacity Grows Where Comfort Ends
What if discomfort isn’t a threat to outrun but a compass to read?
We dive into the art of getting comfortable with the uncomfortable by reframing emotions as information and building the capacity to hold hard moments without breaking faith with ourselves. With guests Scott Plate, Alex Papworth, and Marie Dove, we bridge psychology and somatics to show how breath, attention, and incremental practice can turn raw edges into reliable strength.
We start with a simple shift that changes everything: emotions are signals, not sentences. When we drop the “good vs bad” label, we can hear what feeling is asking for and stop the pressure-cooker cycle of suppress and explode. From there we look at the body as a teacher. Core training becomes a living metaphor for inner stability: strengthening hurts at first, yet it gives you a centre that stands firm in high winds. Expectation and mindset shape experience too—when you meet challenge as practice rather than punishment, you create room to learn instead of brace.
Drawing on polyvagal insights, we explore why a spiking nervous system can be wisdom in disguise. A pause, a longer exhale, a hand on the belly—these micro-moves widen the window of tolerance and prevent the story from hijacking the state. We also tackle discernment in a noisy world: resisting false binaries, holding paradox, and letting intuition emerge when you’re not identified with a side. Growth then becomes humane: “fun comfortable” steps that respect the body’s pace, daily rituals that build trust, and the quiet courage to ask, Do I love myself enough to be awkward while I learn?
If you’re ready to swap avoidance for agency and build inner strength you can feel, press play. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find this conversation.
Thank you for listening and taking the time to explore our podcast.
Earthaconter: Connection, Exploration and Expansion
www.earthaconter.org
Welcome to I Am Enough, the space where we explore journeys back to our forgotten birthright of enoughness, to draw natural wisdom along with awareness, acceptance, and compassion. To support each of us on that journey and embrace our wholeness. Despite what society tells us, each one of us is enough exactly as we are. My name is Lin Mann, and I'd like to welcome you to this space where we explore enoughness, people's journeys along the path to feeling I am enough, and look at what can support each of us on that journey. Hello and welcome to another episode of I Am Enough, the space where we embrace our wholeness. So today I have with me Scott Plate, Alex Papworth, and Marie Dove, and we're going to talk about being comfortable or becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable. Now, I think if we look out into the world, there's a lot of things that make us uncomfortable, and there just seems to be, for many people, a lot of crazy things going on around us just now that really unsettles us. So it is how do we become comfortable with that? But to be comfortable within ourselves, and we were just quickly talking about what that might mean. And I think it is different for each of us. But it really almost starts with the emotions that we're we're feeling and whether we're comfortable with sitting with that, but then what happens to us. So I'm not going to go into a monologue or anything here, but I just want to open the floor and just ask you to share your own experiences of being uncomfortable and having to learn to become comfortable. Marie mentioned something that I think is really important that we can come to, but it's that creating capacity for being comfortable with the uncomfortable. But just yeah, how have you learned to do that and what's your experience as of actually being in this discomfort?
Alex Papworth:Thank you, Lynn. I'm happy to uh dive in. Um big yep on what Scott um said before we started talking, you know. About well, for me in the past, this was the the sort of running away that not being comfortable with being uncomfortable was definitely a pattern. But I reflecting back, it just comes from pure ignorance, you know, without without any sort of sense of self-judgment there, but just that I don't uh I don't feel good, and so the responses to deny, ignore, suppress to run away, whatever it might be. But the ignorance theme I'm talking about here is the is is just not liking the feeling and therefore wanting to get rid of it simply because I didn't know it was useful, necessary. Something something was being you know communicated to me unconsciously and just not just not having a clue, frankly, but that was that was there was some value in that. So that sort of I suppose you you might frame it as the sort of judging emotions for not you know having good emotions and bad emotions, and these these are the bad emotions, therefore let's uh you know let's let's box them away and and and sort of get rid of them. So I think that's my opening perspective on things changed from England when I realized that actually the emotions are uh feelings for our feedback system, and therefore that's value in it all, and sudden suddenly started to take the um the judgment away from the good and the bad. Then then the question is, okay, so what is it having me? Why am I hunger? I shall leave it at that point. Yeah.
Scott Plate:I think you know, sometimes the the predilection toward avoiding discomfort comes from our reptilian brain's tendency to associate it with pain. And pain is something that we wish to have over with as soon as possible, if not immediately. And pain has a resonance, there's the hot center of it, and then I'm just taken by, you know, Marie just got back from traveling and or went to or talked about a place she'd been, there's little fires all over the place, like really close to the surface. And I'm just for some reason that image is in my head. But the further out on the pain scale we go, we go into the word of world of discomfort. There's something that we can live with, but can we live with it, or how how much can we tolerate? And I think for me, some of what we some of our avoidance comes from what we see others not doing or doing. I learned in my own family. It was sort of my family was one where the band-aid got ripped off, whether you wanted it or not, but it was all this avoidance until then, and then it was a big dramatic, and I thought, you know, we might have calibrated this approach a little bit differently to increase our capacity, as you know, Marie was sharing earlier. But we were conditioned to expect pain. So we didn't learn, or I didn't, I shouldn't, I can't really speak for all my siblings and my parents, but we didn't learn to steady ourselves in a process of becoming, even if it was uncomfortable, because we just were conditioned to anticipate the sudden searing that would inevitably result. So it was a process of unlearning not to look at everything as a potential trigger and to understand that pain is one thing, and there's there's a variation, there's a scale of it, and then discomfort is something else.
Marie Dove:Yeah. As everyone's speaking, I'm already feeling like, wow, this is like actually really a massive subject. And really like my brain is going into all sorts of directions. But um, I think for me, there's this sense that like actually I was never comfortable with myself, like who I was. Like, I just didn't like all sort of growing up and in sort of my twenties, and actually probably it wasn't until my 30s that I started to take a journey back to becoming comfortable, like with who I am. So I spent most of my younger life avoiding myself, trying to escape from the discomfort of being me. And and it's interesting that this journey really has been quite central to everything that I do. And the more that I become comfortable with myself, the more I can be comfortable with the discomfort externally as well. And those two things, like, I've never recognised the relationship between them before. Like I always thought, oh, you know, the discomfort in the world is separate to the discomfort I have within myself. But actually, it's all been about creating capacity to hold all of it, not to change it, not to change that a life is messy and deeply uncomfortable, but to be able to have the capacity within myself to hold that and to be okay with that, because actually, sort of looking right back through history as I know it, it's never life is not a comfortable thing. Like, and I think that we have this expectation that it is, like we're always looking for it. Oh, I just want an easy life, just what a comfortable, calm, delightful life. Like we're somehow entitled to that, I don't know. But it isn't that. So, yeah, a bit like Alex was saying at the beginning there about I can't put words to it now, but yeah, I think he was saying about oh yeah, like labelling things as good and bad, labelling emotion, and it's like it it it's all just part of like the tapestry of life, isn't it? And uh coming to mind for me at a session I was in the woods the other day, and um we were reflecting on various things, and I went and saw all these different leaves, really big leaves. That and I I thought, oh, I never noticed these leaves when they're on the teas, but they're huge. And every autumn I really noticed them in the floor. But they're all in different stages, like some were still green, some are really brown, and some were yellow. We brought them all together. One of the ladies in the group had reflected about how we're so up and down with our emotions, and talked about exactly this, like labelling them. And I said, it's like these leaves, isn't it? Like they're all at different stages of like you might look at the brown one and think, oh, that's that's not very nice. But when you put them all together, they are like the rich tapestry of life. Um there's no such thing as a good or a bad like emotion, but yeah, so I don't know where I was going there. But yeah, so just that sense of creating capacity really for all of it, and trying to appreciate all of it as not necessarily comfortable, uncomfortable, just wanting I guess. Yeah.
Lyn Man:It's really interesting because as you were talking, what I'm what's coming up for me is it's those those expectations of how we're expecting we should be in the world and how we're expecting the world should be. But we're kind of going going along and going back to Scott and the the band aid is as well. It's like we're walking through life and we're we're keeping a hat on our emotions because we think this is what we're walking towards, and it's got to be nice, and it's got to we've got to be nice, and we have to do this. And then all of a sudden something happens, and it's like the pressure cooker bursts, and we let out all the discomfort, but in a very kind of fiery way. And and then we go back into the the same post cycle almost of keeping things, you know, keeping things very controlled and feeling, you know, when you were talking about learning to be comfortable with yourself, and I think that's for me it's almost yeah, that feeling like you're taking in so much information of what's going around and not understanding what the reaction is gonna be, it is almost very much like walking on on eggshells. So therefore it's like actually not necessarily even knowing what you're truly feeling because actually you for me it was definitely my awareness was outside, okay. So there was a almost like a discomfort there was a discomfort, definitely, but it was kind of that almost trying to to judge exactly what was going on, not having dealing, I had the ability to deal with it, or not wanting to rock the boat. Um but it was interesting. I would just going back to Scott and Alex, just your own experiences. You know, Scott, you talked about ripping off the band-aid, but Alex, even with with you, what I guess, how were you in the world? And what were your experiences before? I mean, realizing that emotions were important.
Alex Papworth:Yeah, how was I? And and it's you know, love and related to to work, but yeah, what comes to mind is uh you always say is, you know, I thought it important to say please and thank you and be polite to people and then just get on with the work. There's just like a sort of superficial relationship where it's important to get on with people, you know, I would brought up to be polite and uh be well mannered. But the work thing was was just work and and I guess it was, you know, largely I believed an intellectual activity. I guess I need to need to think it through. So certainly emotions weren't really Yeah, they were just really not in the way, you know. I felt lack of confidence or I don't know, just felt uncomfortable. Just things didn't seem to be I just you know maybe I sense things were going quite well and quite right and and being a contract in particular. So it's that there's a level of Yeah, well I suppose the word fray comes to mind which feels a bit strong, but also mean your job is is never safe and um that's the point. It isn't safe, you're there for a period of time. So there's like a sort of sort of constant low level of uh which um which at the time was normal and that's the deal. And um, it's a bit of a well get over it. You've signed up to this. However, as I've been right recently, you can't uh you know, you can't sort of check in your humanity and just uh sign up for you to sort the machine-like behaviour that that's the contract you've signed up to. So so I guess that's what I would like. I'm desperate to talk about my recent physical training activities as I think there's an analogy in here, which I haven't quite I haven't quite translated, but maybe you can help me. But that I've just yeah, as I say, I've just had my first sort of strength training experience. And what's I find fascinating is so it's all about building up the core and so forth, but the thing I came away with was knowing and realizing that I had a dominant muscle. Yeah, because because they hurt. So, okay, so far so I would say sort of obvious. But just just from that sensation at age 56, I've just been walking around, noticing them and engaging them in a way that I don't think I can't really remember ever doing that before. And just sitting there watching the TV, you know, very sort of you know lazy activity, and just saying, right, I'm ready, you know, I'll really engage in them now, I'm really working hard, which appeals to my um get fit without being putting much effort into it. Mentality. But there's something in there about just you you're carrying around these, you know, these muscles, your gum muffles as an example, and just having no awareness of them um until until you're in pain and then suddenly you're realizing you know how important they are. You know, I've been actually walking, literally, and paying very much a lot of attention to be mindful in my walking and noticing where's my posture, what my neck's doing, how my balance is working. But at no point did I did I notice what my abdominal muscles were doing. So I've suddenly discovered this whole new thing, which I feel is somewhat analogous to the uh to the idea of discovering this this range of emotions which you know have relevance in my UC. So um I'm feeling slightly uncomfortable with just dropping this sort of messy, messy analogy in front of you all straight. Sounds late. But uh yeah, it was just that sort of revelation really, quite almost revelatory, that experience of hmm, I can I can use these things, I can see them, I can feel them, I can sense them, I can I can just I can even like think about which ones am I exercising? Yeah, which ones are being strained now? Why have I got that level of facility, that level of I guess sort of sensitivity or dexterity to actually really start to connect and learn what am I exercising here? Yeah, and it's sort of quite, I don't know, I feel like there's there's an analogy in terms of the excitement to discovering this pain is useful. I mean back to the feelings. What am I gonna do with it? What can I learn with it? What's you know, how can I play with it as a new exciting thing to play with, I suppose is my tortured and I'm in it doesn't feel tortured at all.
Scott Plate:Yeah, following you. I think it connects nicely to Marie's experience in the forest with the leaves and understanding how emotions have a variegated palate. And I think what happens for me, at least my my experience is we tend to think of uncomfortable, comfortable, and we sort of get stuck in a binary of those are our two options. It's one or the other. And you know, I think what happens is when we begin to understand they they may be structural elements of how we experience feeling, but that we have agency within that range to develop experiments as you have done with your physical training and to bring um to bring awareness to the actual sensation of moving through. And even I find the very act of bringing awareness to it decreases the level of pain we experience or the level of discomfort we experience. I think the in my in my own experience, everything follows from the kind of attention I bring to the work. If I have an attitude that it's going to hurt, then it probably will. If I have an attitude that it's going to feel good, then it probably will. I can be surprised by what happens, but more often than not, I realize that my attitude toward discomfort has pretty much predetermined exactly what my experience of that discomfort is going to be. So, you know, I I don't it's I don't think it's messy at all. It makes a lot of sense. It's just kind of immersing yourself in the physical sensation of it in order to understand that you actually have a range of options. And it's kind of cool. I think it gets back to the passage in a nice way.
Marie Dove:I think um I think it's really interesting that you brought up smoke muscles, actually. Um I just listened to that and and thought about a time where I did a lot more exercise than I do now. Um and yeah, I did a lot of work on my core. And there's something about that actually, that particular area of the body that really does relate to what we're talking about because I certainly found that strengthening the core was very painful and it made you very aware of your core, but it also, for me personally, gave me like much more of a strength, a sense of my own strength, and therefore helped me to be more with things that were uncomfortable. And I've talked about this quite a few times, like it's that real sense. Of yourself, like it's like that real um stability. Like I I I felt it when my husband and I climbed Corsy Pike in the lake district, and it was a really stupid idea. It was like 40 mile an hour winds on the ground, so it was like 80 mile an hour, but when it was on the top. It was the kind of wind that like you couldn't open mouth. It like took it like got into your throat and like took your breath away. But I have never felt so strong as I did. Like I could feel this my core that was because it's a very uh that mountain is like, you know, it had two, it's got like a a bit of a drop on either side. And I felt like really sturdy, really strong. So it just I don't know, for me that was the link I made from what you were saying, like this real sense of that was particularly uncomfortable experience, but I felt like from my core, like a really strong stability to be with that discomfort. So I don't know if that fits at all, but it's what came to mind for me like that really again, it's that capacity that we're talking about, like we create like um a capacity to be with our emotions, the difficult emotions, but it's also creating like a physical capacity as well. So um yeah, I feel like it's it's interesting how you brought that up.
Lyn Man:Actually, it is because it's what you're talking about, the uh what you've touched on the strength. So do you feel that there's an inner there's a if we go back to almost our our own inner strength, so not the physical strength, but our own inner strength and how we feel about ourselves. So going back to what you shared earlier about learning to be comfortable with yourself, but as we build that inner strength, is that something that builds our capacity? And and how can we do that and recognize that we have that inner strength?
Marie Dove:Yeah. I think it's interesting that inner strength, because yeah, what came to mind, I know we touched on it before we went recorded, but the the the nervous system, and really the nervous system is like a muscle that we need to like stretch and work with um for our ability to be with the more challenging emotions and past experiences. So yeah, I think that working with ourselves creates capacity and strength to be with all of it. And it's uh what I love about it, or my experience of working with the nervous system, isn't that you're changing anything. Like you're not, you know, everything that's happened in your life has happened in your life, it's imprinted in who you are, but you're not looking to change it, but you're you're able to working with this nervous system and seeing it like a muscle really helps me because it's like when you stretch this muscle and you strengthen this muscle, it's like, oh I'm not that thing that happened hasn't gone. I can be with it. I can sit with it and I can be with it, and you can and you recognise that within your own body of the capacity to be with something comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. So even when there's like this real discomfort of something that's happened to you or how you feel about something, at the same time as feeling that discomfort in the nervous system, you can feel somewhere else in the body like a resource, like a capacity. And when you learn to like be with them both, suddenly you can sit with your like difficult emotion in a totally different way. So it's not gone, but you're like, that's okay, I can I can sit with that. I don't feel any to run on that.
Alex Papworth:I'd like to, if I may, just ask about the um the mountain um and your thought on the mountain, because I for me that's I mean, I think it's some really strong things about a core and and it's an analogy or maybe it's a literal truth, and maybe the you know the core muscular and the the nervous system are very interrelated. It doesn't really matter. But as I like the what I was thinking about was the ability to to to having that strong core, and then there was the idea of discernment. So if you know you were literally in this gale, and I imagine it was quite important how you f you place your feet, and and to me that's part of that is pride, you know, pride in your in your inner strength, and then the ability to choose a choose a safer, steady path, and the importance of being a discernment, because if you're just you know like a like a rock resisting us, but you need that that whole sort of tensile strength and that balance and poise in order to do to do that. Um I think you might be putting words into your mouth, but that's what I'm I'm curious about when you're climbing when you're climbing that mountain is where there's a quality of discernment that's that's all present there as well. Judgment maybe, I'm not sure.
Marie Dove:I think as you were speaking, what came up for me was that I wonder how much of it yeah, like I wonder how much of it's mindset as well. Because I knew that my core was stronger, I trusted myself more. I was like, I'm strong enough to deal with this, I've got this, like this is okay. Can I can feel my strength? Had I not done that training, like that um exercise be like strengthen my core, maybe I would have had a different mindset. So I sort of in because I trusted myself, I knew how to navigate that situation, like I knew where to like how to be with it. I think I don't know if that answers what you you're asking, but that's what came to mind.
Alex Papworth:Hmm. There's almost either mental equals a physical, or the physical equals a mental, or there is no separation anyway. So it's almost a yeah, unhelpful separation.
Scott Plate:That makes sense. I think what I'm hearing is building capacity to be comfortable with discomfort really involves creating a reliable relationship with ourselves first. I mean, I know from hearing from from Marie's example that there was trust in there that her body would be able to withstand what it was being asked to withstand. And Alex getting curious about what was happening in his physical training. And I think Marie said something a few moments ago that's really core for me is basically I'm not what's happening to me. You know, what happens in the moment of discomfort is it feels as though my existence is about this moment. And in we think our life, I know I did for a long time, and I'm working with a principle that's a bit different. I thought life was what happened. You know, I think for me, life is what holds me while all this happens. I learned this actually from a coach I worked with for many years, Ernest Morrow. He he was an axiom that really proved valuable for me, taking a step back from the hot zone of feeling and recognizing that I had identified myself with everything that happened. And it's an egoic projection. It's, you know, you know, it's what a child does. And a part of me that doesn't have capacity for discomfort is very young. So taking a step back and recognizing that I'm actually, if if I can find the perspective that tunes into what's holding all these experiences, I have more of a capacity to appreciate their variety and their contrast from one to the other. And I think when I show up for myself in that way, that trusting relationship invariably develops. And ordering myself around doesn't work. You know, it hasn't, and I've tried that. You know, there's a voice that comes in that says, you will get over it, like get over it, get up, move on. Some may respond to that tone. I don't. I have a big fat middle finger that comes up pretty much immediately in response. So, which is another form of registering discomfort. So, what I find for me is helpful is trying to pay attention in the right way to what's going on and taking that tiny little step out saying, I'm not this series of events. This is not me. I can see it if I give myself a chance. And giving myself a chance to see it over and over and over, that relationship in me, that part of me that is scared, will trust that some responsible adult will show up and begin to view it in a way that gives me agency. And it took a long time and some good guidance. I didn't do this on my own, you know, so I'm still working with it. But I'm appreciating, you know, how kind of visceral some of these examples are. Like core stuff is interesting to me.
Lyn Man:I want to go back to the nervous system because Scott, you said before we started there was something around the nervous system you would really like to bring in. So I'm gonna just open that.
Scott Plate:Sure. Sure. I think, you know, it's interesting, the our autonomic nervous system is, you know, that which governs involuntary processes. And there's a theory out there that we probably have heard of, polyvagal theory, which talks about this vagus nerve as an Amazon river through of information and sensation and neurological messaging that is far more tied to our autonomic nervous system than we may always not maybe we may be aware. And so very often some we can find ourselves, for example, scrolling online and all of a sudden in a air quote bad neighborhood of opinion, and find ourselves registering anger, which is of course the point of the internet, to engage rage and extreme emotion in more ways than one. Not the only point, but a major point. Attention plus engagement equals profit for somebody. So the thing that I think was helpful for me to recognize is the discomfort I felt as a result of the message I was getting from my nervous system was not necessarily bad news. It was an invitation to pause, take a step back, recognize that I had I was beginning to immerse myself in these circumstances and swim in them as though it were my environment and the only one available to me, when in effect what I was getting was a warning that I was about to head into water that I might not choose to go into had I have had I had all my wits around me. So what I began to carry the question about was maybe a dysregulated nervous system is actually wisdom embedded in this moment. So rather than look away, avoid, run, I'm uncomfortable, whatever somatic practices, whatever grounding or breath practices I can use, just to stop for a moment or pause for a moment and see what might be here. And in that very act of breathing, capacity increases just a little bit. I can have, I can create some space for the feeling, as Marie was saying earlier. And what I got as a as a as a messenger was a nervous system response that was that registered alarm, discomfort, negativity. So rather than slam the book and run away, to begin to kind of reverse the polarity of the flight impulse and turn around and look. Just turn around for a moment and look, and how it's slow sometimes to do. It's very slow because I'm afraid and I can feel myself being afraid. I don't want to see what's there because I might not like myself looking back. But the truth is, as long as I look at this opportunity as either a wrong or a right, a yes or a no, you know, an uncomfortable or comfortable, I'm kind of limited by this binary pull. And then I recognize in a moment that I'm not, I don't need to be relegated to one end or another of an intransition binary. I can actually see myself as having all the space in between. And then a breath fills it, and then another breath fills it even more, and another breath fills it even more, and the feeling, which has a shelf life of a minute or two, begins to have a little bit more space to be. And then the nervous system and its warning signal was what started that whole process. And so it was a nice practice to wake up to and to remember how to do. I'm not always successful. I fall down often, but it's helpful to remember that it's not the end, it's actually the beginning.
Lyn Man:Yeah, I find that I really like that because what you're saying in that is actually about presence and coming back to yourself. So what I really appreciate was it's not looking at the the polarity, it's not looking at the right or wrong, or um, it comes back to something I think it was you said earlier, Scott, about the our belief about the the situation. And it's it's the same thing, it's w how we how are we perceiving it, how are we interpreting it, but you're saying it's actually coming back inside and just being present and being present with the emotion and letting that ride over that that minute because the chemical reaction that happens, but not attaching that feeling to it that creates the story, or not naming it and creating the story actually helps us to step out of it. And I think it is just seeing that again, just rec going back to what's been said before, not recognising that emotions aren't right or wrong. They're telling us something and using it as an as information to help us.
Scott Plate:It's like a GPS starts with you are here, and the emotional response just tells you where you are.
Alex Papworth:I've got a um a recent experience which I think it's quite interesting in this space around uh the outrage, the outrage space and um the wrong and right. And uh well for me it's about discernment. So you so I've you know I'm quite interested in AI. And um I've been I've been trying to follow people who I trust really to sort of tell the truth, you know, again in quotes. I think the capacity is quite relevant here because it's I've it's only falling into the trap of you know, the truth teller, the Robin Hood, the one particular chaos who's become the Robin Hood, the truth teller. And and I think the that this is where the discernments come in because this is where yes he is, and he's also not, and been able to hold that idea that they're both, you know, well-meaning and helpful and useful, and also deceptive and manipulative, and you know, so and actually to see that one person without them falling into one camp or the other, I feel that's that's what's come. I mean, I'm just frubbing off the fact. The point being the feeling I had of not quite so sure about this guy, you know. Not sure whether he's you know, I might be manipulators here. But it's but it's easy, it's it's so easy to snap into the other, you know, the other end of the spectrum and like, okay, he is one of the liars and manipulators too. So I'll just keep my mission to find out the truth teller, and there'll be one out there who can tell me I can trust absolutely. Which then speaks to the you know, looking for the saver and that whole mentality. But I think the the point I'm trying to sort of discern and tease out here is that capacity for me to detect that signal without getting caught up in it and having to go and collapse into you know a a what a sort of false binary and still value, you know, and still share and still look at what this guy is saying. But with a little bit more um clarity, I suppose. And with a little bit more actually, I don't know, I I feel like I'm sort of seeing more as a you know, more human in some ways. And yeah. I don't know. Just one thing you wrote. I thought I've got to say something about that. I need to tell this guy off. He's been with me, he's been quite naughty, he's been quite offensive. I I like I like what he writes, and I really can't call someone a whiner. That's just, you know, I'm a thingless of the places you were talking about, Scott Pay. That's what language is there. What's going on with his name? I I left it. But um, yeah, but I think it's having a capacity not to get, yeah. I feel I've I've cultivated that. And I'm I'm proud of how I've cultivated that. You know, you've got that, you know, I've got the inner strength to be able to take a breath. Okay, something important to be learned here. Let's see what it is. I have found a new truth telling about the weights, but I'm not I'm just I'm not getting drawn into believing everything she says. But she's but but in but but in a way that's that's that's the point. That is, I found a more discerning source, a more valuable and more high quality, um, which is gonna really help me with navigating uh of people who've recently been calling it a it's both heaven and hell. I actually think you think it's heaven, you've probably found hell by the way, anyway. But anyway. But discerning, yeah, playing in that space is is is the emotional emotionally thought. So um I am grateful to have that capacity to start being more discerning and see. And learn more. You know, learn more without getting you know falling into into these traps, these binary, false, false binaries.
Marie Dove:Yeah, the the the stepping back, um, like so not identifying with things is the key, really, isn't it? But wow, that's so difficult because of our instant, very rapid response to things. And it's like when yeah, like if we could develop that capacity for everything, everything like everything would be different for us because we wouldn't we wouldn't be like reacting with the same patterns that we've always had. But there's definitely something around when it especially when it comes to like the truth, like there's something I read something a while ago and I really liked it. And it was saying that when you don't identify with something, when you step back and you really Don't allow yourself to feel like pulled in either direction, the truth will come to you because you're not identified. Like your own intuition then has space to to speak because it's not because you're not being pulled in with this identification. And I thought, oh yeah, that's so true. And like you can sometimes touch yourself doing it if we can really think I'm just not, I'm I'm really not being pulled into this. It has to be so clean, because like if there's even a part of me that's one-sided, like you're not gonna get it. And I'm not I'm really not saying that I am there at all with any butt, but like this like tiny glimpses occasionally, and I and I think that that's really I think this person was actually saying, you know, like the truth has a vibration, and like if so if you can like not identify that you will feel the truth and just love them, it's a different way, like a different way forward with that. But um like our path like it when we do identify, it like is I think one of you said it's a really amazing opportunity for us to to know ourselves because it's like what you know, why am I feeling this sense of anger or sense of like whatever it is that what I'm reading or what I'm seeing or what I'm pulled into, and it's like what it so curiosity is like the key for like understanding our relationship with comfort and discomfort because it's like why is this making us feel uncomfortable? And when we get curious, then we get the opportunity to think, yeah, like what part of me is so identified with the situation right now? Why am I finding this so uncomfortable? And it is likely you know linked to many different things, probably in our lifetime or something, but it gives us a real real opportunity to know ourselves, doesn't it? I guess. And that can be uncomfortable as well.
Scott Plate:I think you're right, Marie. It's it's can be so hard in some time just to step back because the pain can be can feel so intense, and the discomfort can feel so strong. And for those of us who you know have a practiced trauma response to things, and it very often feelings are like a bowl of fish hooks. You can't just sort of pick up one, there's a whole bunch of other things that come up attached to it. But and how we identify those, I think, is is key. I know for myself that I very often catch myself between thinking and feeling. Like I think I'm feeling and I feel I'm thinking, and sometimes I don't necessarily know the difference. If I'm in discomfort mode, what my thinking amounts to is this sort of rehashing of things I either like or don't like. And that becomes a reflection of my emotional state. But what you were talking about feels more like clear thinking to me is if I can step back and see, compare, I think the function of our analytical function of the intellect is to compare. Here's an apple, here's an orange, you know, and look at it clearly, see the differences, and not necessarily have a response to them. But it's it's nice, I think, when our emotions have that partner just to kind of provide a little structure or or what's the word? I guess capacity is the right word for our feelings, that we feel safe knowing that our feelings are being seen for what they are. And someone in us is is practicing paying attention. And uh that practice does wind up like Alex in the gym. We get stronger. You know, we get the attention gets stronger, and it's strained at first because, as you know, it doesn't always it sounds good to say this, but in reality, I react and and have a difficult time all the time. But practice is what helps. It's like what can you practice with your attention? It's it's nice in a way when we recognize that our attention is actually a precious commodity and maybe the most valuable resource we have, and we may as well be the ones profiting by it, which I think helps us navigate discomfort and feel, you know, capacity increase. Otherwise, somebody else is they're just borrowing us for batteries.
unknown:Yeah.
Alex Papworth:I was just a just a passing comment with just um the curios I fell the the int well for me when you were describing that it was a curiosity. It's like uh intellectual curiosity about those feelings that it's sort of I've got the image of you know parents coolly watching a couple of you know, well a kids while one's you know having a having a tantrum in front of them and just being curious about why this tantrum is happening. You know, in a very detached way. Which doesn't sound like a normal parent. But anyway I feel, or maybe I think, that uh the intellect can play that role that can, you know, step away from those those feelings and um and observe them with curiosity.
Speaker:Yeah.
Alex Papworth:And you are the parent. They are yours, so best to understand them when you try and uh understand these these sort of strange feelings. What were you gonna say, Marie?
Marie Dove:Yeah, I love I would I was actually just gonna say, like, yeah, just having this conversation and just reflecting, like, makes me realize like it's it talking about this is one thing. Putting it into practice is another. Because I was I I was really thinking about how yes, I've done a lot of work with the nervous system, yes, there's things that I'm more comfortable, but there's still like a really long way to go for me. Like there's a lot of things that in life that I that I find uncomfortable and that I still really want to run away from. Like exercise is actually one of them. Like I don't I don't what basically is making me realise like I don't have I don't like pain, I don't like suffering, I want things to be nice. I think there's also something around perfectionism as well. I think we want to be perfect, we want the perfect life, we want everything to be nice, and and like so yeah, so for me there can be like a discomfort in making a mistake still, you know, like oh, that doesn't make me feel very nice. Like I wanna, I wanna, you know, be the perfect person. And I'm really working on that, just to say, but it's like it's not an easy, an easy one to to let go. So I do think this is like because actually this this subject is one of the biggest things for humans, isn't it? I think it's particularly in the West. Uh I know like um I was reading, I think it's Kima Children's book, Start Where You Are, and she was talking about how in the West is the thing in the West. We run away from anything uncomfortable. Like it's I'm sorry if I've quoted her totally wrong. I'm pretty sure she said that. But yeah, like it's so it's not something that we can just I just wanted to acknowledge like the enormity of it, really. Because as we're talking about it, yeah, I can really see like areas that I've worked on, but how many more layers there are to go, you know? So yeah, that's a huge subject.
Lyn Man:It's uh it's a beautiful way of introducing what I was actually just gonna go to. So but for me it was exactly you know, we've talked a lot about the nervous system emotions and expanding capacity to hold them. But where we hadn't gone was actually that that space of actually it's it's so much easier to sit in that comfort and recognise actually, you know what, I'm not gonna do that because I really don't want to feel that. And and that there are so many things, and I think it's almost, and you're right, about being in the West, there's there's so many things that we don't push ourselves towards because there is that discomfort. And it is how do we how do we start to do that? And I think you know, when I'm talking, I'm taken back to to when I started running and actually running with a a running group, and it was very much that that building up. And I remember going out the the first time with the the running coach to kind of get an assessment to where I was. And my you know, my traditional thing was, you know, I I can't run far. I can I can run and then that would be it. And she just had me going at a gentle pace and was talking along, and I didn't even know how far and I'd run 7K without even realizing what I'd done. And I think I can't remember how much time later it was, but I did run a half a half marathon, and I trained up to that kind of across the winter, and but I had a schedule and I knew what I had to do, and if I did this, this, and this and this, it got me to this stage. And I was determined to finish it, even though I got a stitch, you know, not that you know, a couple of kilometres from the end, it was like, no, I'm going going to do this. But it did mean me running in freezing snow and things like that, or going out first thing in the morning when it was already 25 because we were in Switzerland, it was already like 25 degrees or whatever centigrade. And um, but I I had what I was going to do, and I'd been gradually introduced into the discomfort or the challenge of stepping out of the comfort, if that makes sense. And it is that that curio going back to the beliefs about how we think of things. I think sometimes we think things are are so much bigger than they actually are, and it's taking those little steps towards things. But I'd just love to hear what your thoughts are on that, because I think it is so easy to stay in our comfort zone.
Marie Dove:Um yeah, and that's the link again with the mindset, isn't it? It's like your your determination to achieve that. Like I'm it's worth it for me. It's worth it for me to get out of my comfort zone, it's worth the discomfort to achieve something that I'm gonna achieve, right? And and what strikes me when I'm speaking is this there's a difference between like really choosing to be with a discomfort, and then when it um but when it's thrown at you in the moment and it's like, whoa, like there's it's like I can plan to to work I can I can choose to work on my nervous system, I can choose all of that. But when something comes down out of the blue and like you're like, whoa, I didn't see that coming, and then you're in this, like you want to push it away, you want to run away from it. It's like it takes us time to transform that and to to then be with it. There's so many different levels to it, it feels like for me. And that yeah, that's what that's what came to mind when you when you spoke on.
Scott Plate:I saw a program one time where uh he's a he's a coach. He's based in New Hampshire, and he has a program that he calls Fun Comfortable. And it's in order when we're making the process, for example, I'm thinking of your running coach, Lynn, who sort of took you at a nice, easy pace and gradually and sounds like very enjoyably increased your your capacity to the point where you didn't know you'd run 7K and then ultimately trained up to a half marathon, is to give your nervous system incremental chances to adapt to the increasing capacity, because increasing capacity in and of itself can sometimes feel uncomfortable. I have an idea about where I'm supposed to be and what I can do, and all of a sudden I'm beyond it, and very often I can get frightened or or feel the physical deficit of it. But I think for me, this is something I'm struggling with in my own way. It's just I think struggling sounds a little dramatic. This is something I'm paying attention to in my own way. It's do I love myself enough to actually be awkward in my attempt to gain capacity? And if I do, then chances are I'll stick it out, even when it's uncomfortable. Like Marie was saying earlier, it was worth it to go through it, it was worth a little discomfort to go through this. And so then the question comes up who who is it worth it to? And who determines what that worth is? And I think for me, it's do I love myself enough to try something that's gonna make me uncomfortable because I trust myself to hang in there? Do I think enough of myself to be uncomfortable? To trust that I'll I can stand up. I I find it, you know, every morning. I get up early for a morning ritual I do, and I often ask myself, it's like 4:30, or you know, and I what is it that gets me from horizontal to vertical and like pushing myself up? And it's like, you're crazy, it's 4 o'clock in the morning. And dogs are looking at me like, what are you doing? But there's something in that wish to get up because I don't know what's beyond. I have no connection to the benefit at the moment. I'm just grinding from horizontal to vertical, but there's something embedded in that that feels like it has more wisdom than I may be aware of in that. And some of that is just habit, you know, repeating it every day and knowing, muscle memory, that it's possible. But there I feel like there's something else. There's something else in there that the wiser part of me knows. And what the less wise part of means needs to learn to do is trust that someone in me is watching and paying attention. Someone in me has my best interests in mind, and I'm going to work through all the lower level dense material stuff just to get to the place of feeling that that regard from me. And I don't have any awareness of that in the moment, but for some reason this morning, that's that's what makes sense. It's like I could be uncomfortable because I'm with it. I'm worth, I'm worth the effort, you know.
Lyn Man:I do love that. And I could really feel that when you you you just start off, you know, by say, Do I, do I love myself enough to make myself feel or be awkward? And it's like, whoa, okay. Actually, when you put it like that, and it and again, you know, because one of the things I keep thinking about, you know, one of the things that's the challenge is is things like social media and and things like that, and putting myself out there. And it is actually okay. So when you put it like that, and then link it to actually, and what is it I want to give people with this, then maybe it makes it more worthwhile. So I'm gonna play with that. Thank you.
Marie Dove:It's like what what am I putting in the space out of my own desire for wellness to maybe help someone else feel well. And it's not about I'm gonna make you feel well and I know what the benefit is. I just know on some level that there's a ripple effect. And I think that's part of the faith or the belief, is just this isn't about just me. It isn't. You know, it's it's it's it's the space we share, and we're not disconnected at all. We're not separated. And maybe that's hopeful on my part, but it is part of what gets me out of bed, definitely.
Lyn Man:So before we finish, is there anything that you would like to to add as a prison?
Marie Dove:I feel like um Yeah, for me, it's just there's a lot more to reflect on. Like it just feels like such a big subject. Like sort of uh what was coming to mind for me there was like when Scott said it's not just about me, but I was thinking about how it's it can be easier to be uncomfortable with a group as well, like to be with something that's really uncomfortable as a group, which I is interesting in in a sense, because if you're if you're struggling to be with it yourself, you would maybe think, oh, I don't want to share it with anyone else. But actually my experience, certainly in the work I do, is that people because there's something about about the collective experience of it that seems to seems to work. So that that came up, but also fear I was thinking about fear. I think um we're talking about this in a group in a circle the other day, actually, just about how prevalent fear is in all of us, and so it's gotta be you know there's a lot there about how do we get comfortable um with fear. So there's huge amounts still to explore. So I'm gonna take take that away and reflect further and notice my own discomforts.
Lyn Man:Yeah, yeah, with some actions.
Scott Plate:You're right though, it is a it is a big, big, big subject. What comes to mind for me is what is my effort making possible for someone else, whether they're living or dead. And I feel like, you know, part of the reason I'm meant to experience discomfort is because someone who came before me could not get past that point. They were not able to. And there's something about taking what I've been given and turning it into something that carries someone further. And I feel that responsibility. And I run into people, you know, people who have passed on when I'm trying, I see them, I run into them, like, are you? I know you're here. I know you're here. I can feel you pushing me past where you went. So it helps me, like, you know, I think to it echoes what Marie was saying. It is interesting that it's easier to bear discomfort in a group. And sometimes the group with whom we bear it isn't necessarily present. Yes, it's there in a group, but I feel like I've been given this life in order to in order to expand what's possible. And sometimes discomfort is involved with that. And yes, that's a philosophical belief, but and in practice you just have to push through. You know, Marie was talking about you know, being away and getting sick on very bad. I'm just gonna get through this and get home where I can feel, you know, it's like that. And it's worth it, you know. So that's what I'm mindful of.
Lyn Man:I love that. So it's like we we will feel discomfort, but we're because we're moving towards possibilities and that we believe real enough. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Lyn Man:Yeah. Well, thank you. It's been a wonderful conversation, as always. Thank you for listening to this episode of I Am Enough. We hope you enjoyed it and are inspired to see yourself as enough and create possibilities. If you would like to discover more, please visit earthaconta.org.