[video available on spotify] i recently discovered that one of the most significant causes of emotional instability for me is being under the wrong kinds of pressure. i can think of many instances of pressure being beneficial, but the wrong kind of pressure can cause us to crumble. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Full Episode
I recently discovered that one of the most significant causes of emotional instability for me is being under the wrong kinds of pressure. And I say the wrong kinds of pressure because not all pressure is bad. In fact, pressure can be incredibly beneficial.
I look back at many high-pressure moments in my young adult life fondly because even though they were absolutely horrifying in the moment, uncomfortable, scary, honestly, even at times miserable, I came out the other side a better person, a more flexible person, a more confident person. It's almost like we're rocks. And the more good pressure we have on us,
the more that we develop into a diamond. Diamonds form when carbon atoms bond together under intense heat and pressure deep within the earth. Imagine that we are carbon atoms and imagine positive, healthy forms of pressure in our lives turn us into diamonds. Isn't that just a beautiful metaphor? Enjoy that metaphor. Take that with you. Good pressure can be really good.
Bad pressure, on the other hand, a type of pressure that I think we all tend to pay less attention to can be detrimental. And instead of turning us into a diamond, can cause us to crumble. This is something that I realized recently. I knew that I was under good types of pressure. I was aware of the benefits of pressure.
But for a long time, I was unaware of the dangers of the wrong kind of pressure. And so I wasn't really paying attention to the types of pressure that I was inflicting on myself that were damaging me. Because I want to be clear, there are pressures in our lives that are out of our control. That's not what I'm talking about today. What I'm talking about is self-inflicted pressures, okay?
The pressure that we put on ourself and also the high-pressure situations that we put ourselves in. I can think of many instances of pressure being incredibly beneficial for me. And I'll give you examples. To start, growing up, I was a competitive cheerleader, ages like 10 to 15.
And when I first started, the pressure was high, but just high enough to challenge me, but not so high that I had a mental breakdown. We did relatively competitive competitions. I was a competitive cheerleader, which meant that instead of cheering for football games and basketball games and stuff like that for sports teams at our school, we performed routines at competitions.
And the pressure came in when it was time to perform in front of judges and a bunch of family and friends and competitors. And at times, even in arena filled with people, That was really challenging for me. Luckily, when I first started, obviously I was a beginner and it just wasn't that competitive.
But over the course of five years, it got very competitive and even more stressful and even more high pressure. And I mean, listen, it's a cheer competition. A lot of people would look at that situation and say, that's not a high pressure situation. But everything is relative. And at the time, it felt like my entire world.
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