Embrace Your Energy - The one great secret to transforming your life

Whether you're seeking better and more innovative ways of living, expanding into higher levels of leadership, or simply cultivating more inner peace and happiness—the path is the same. Beneath all meaningful transformation lies one powerful, often overlooked process. In this blog, we’ll uncover that secret and explore practical, grounded steps to help you integrate it into your everyday life.

Behind all your perceived blocks, stuck areas in life, and repeated challenges lies an invitation that many of us avoid. The invitation to stay with discomfort without moving to distract ourselves from it, deny it is there, or forcibly suppress it. 

Your discomforts are like the underdogs of the psyche, and when you choose to finally acknowledge them, learn how to face them, and even develop some compassion for these emotional states, you will find that you would have uncovered the greatest secret to what holds you back and how to propel yourself into your greatest potential.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” — Joseph Campbell

Understanding the gift of your underdogs

When you stop living the automatic and habitual life, pause, and really be with what is showing up for you in the moment, you enter into the void. Few of us like this void. It's the unknown, the dynamic, and the unpredictable. The void is the place within us where the underdogs of discomfort appear.

We can experience them as restlessness, loneliness, confusion, fatigue, depression, frustration, fear, hopelessness, etc. What they all have in common is their purpose: to invite you to face your pain. We all carry hidden pain—old wounds, triggers, and emotional traumas that quietly shape how we react, relate, and live. 

Most of us spend years trying to avoid these tender spots, building strategies to protect ourselves from anything that might brush up against them. This, my dear friend, is behind what is holding you back. This is what keeps you playing small. This is the tension you feel and why ease eludes you. It's that simple. 

So the gift that these underdogs bring is powerful: an opportunity to become more and more comfortable with discomfort. Though it may not feel like it at first, they’re actually offering a profound service. They always carry the same purpose: to draw buried pain from the shadows of your subconscious—pain that is finally ready to be seen, felt, and released.

When you practise being with the discomfort, sitting with the vulnerability, being curious about what it wants to show you, setting aside any stories about it and simply being with it, something profound starts to happen.

Withstanding the undercurrents

Now, before we explore the glorious transformative shifts that occur when you are able to remain curious and open to your inner underdogs, let's first pay heed to the traps that can derail you from fully alchemising your pain into growth.

The undercurrents of these traps can feel incredibly strong. It can feel like a magnetic force pulling you into a spiral of stories and behaviours that only places you back into the same repeated cycles. 

If you recognise an unhealthy pattern in your life, you'll know that the only way to create fresh outcomes is to step off the train and try something new. Let's unpack the three main undercurrents sponsoring most of your repeated cycles. 

Distraction

The undercurrent of distraction is not to be underestimated. This refers to anything that takes your focus away from the present moment of simply being with the void of your own pain. This is the sole cause of addictions, especially those that appear healthy. 

When you feel the pang of pain emerge, what do you do to avoid facing it?

Blame

The undercurrent of blame is strong too. This takes the focus off your inner landscape and puts the responsibility onto the external world. If you are able to see all external challenges as having an internal sponsoring pain, you can take back your power, transforming the uncertainty of the world through inner work.

What about the world brings up pain in you, and how could you take responsibility for the pain it causes within you?

Preferences

The undercurrent of preferences is a force that keeps you stuck in rigid habits. The "I like it" or "I don't like it" beliefs you carry create tolerances and intolerances that weaken your willpower, your immune system, and your ability to remain flexible. Leaning in to those things you normally avoid and not giving in to instant gratifications is a great practice.

What things do you avoid in life that could be holding a growth opportunity for you?

“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” — Susan David

Embracing all of your life

The art of not being seduced by the above traps is what I would like to explore with you now. This becomes your practice and the secret weapon you bear to transform your life, your outcomes, and your wellbeing. 

This practice requires that you stay open and receptive to the energy you feel within your body. It is a process for staying with uncomfortable emotions, transmuting them into wisdom and resolution. If it gets too uncomfortable, the mind can become anxious, so keep your focus on your breath as a way to remain a witness. 

Step 1: Acknowledge that you are feeling uncomfortable. E.g., somebody has just triggered you, or you have noticed a craving for something.

Step 2: Pause. Take three conscious breaths. Lean in to the energy you are feeling in your body. Stay with it. Experience it fully. Remain curious about it. What shape is it? Does it have a texture or colour? Where in your body is it sitting? How does it move? What is the weight of it? What thoughts does it bring up? 

Step 3: Refrain from taking any action. Here you want to ensure you do not become seduced by the energy. Do not take action or make decisions; do not do anything or speak out. Simply stay awake to it. In this way, you cause no harm to yourself or another.

Step 4: Relax into the energy. Imagine your muscles softening around the energy. Focus on your breath, and with every out breath, relax your muscles more and more. Thoughts and stories will come up in the mind to justify the energy. Simply release these and come back to the moment. Keep relaxing and releasing your physical body, including your heart.

This practice helps cultivate a tolerance for the challenges of life. Who knew that the skill of resilience and equanimity, a skill that often feels elusive or almost impossible to do, is really just the art of embracing energy? 

“If you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” — Ram Dass

Have fun with your growth

It is so important to maintain a sense of humour around these challenging moments in life. When you begin on the journey of embracing your energy, it is inevitable that you will be tempted by the traps that want to lure you back into comfort again. 

Keep contacting your curiosity and that part within you that is an objective witness. Even if just for moments at a time. This is the great heroic choice of being human in an otherwise uncertain and unstable landscape, called life.

Traffic and family relationships are great places to start practising this skill! Reframe these little irritations as gifts. Invitations to release yet another layer of pain that has been holding you back. Over time, and with constant practice, you lose your appetite for the traps. You become comfortable with discomfort. 

It's all a great game! Nothing is certain. Make mistakes. Take a chance. Feel the pain. Embrace it all. Move on.