Mindfulleigh Mental

For the past month or so, I have been wearing a gold cross ring on my thumb (more on that in another post because how can I *a chronic over-explainer* miss an opportunity to over-explain my purchase of a ring?). I also have been wearing another style gold ring on my middle finger. About a week ago, with the natural fluctuations of my fingers swelling, the ring on my middle finger began to wear into my skin and it began to hurt. Initially, I attempted to solve the issue with applying lotion to my skin, which helped a little though it didn’t resolve the problem. Then, I thought, “maybe the swelling will fluctuate again and the ring will fit like it did initially.” Wearing the gold cross ring on my thumb was an intentional choice (to be explained) and while I considered swapping the placement of the rings, I noticed resistance to doing so. Not long after, the ring on my middle finger began wearing into my skin even more. I realized I was resisting change in its simplest form. I was choosing to stay in minor pain, hoping for the outcome to resolve itself, rather than implementing a potential solution because the approach was different than I hoped it would be. I swapped the placement of the rings and while where my skin is worn is still healing, it feels better. It made me think of how often many of us sit in our pain longer because our history of pain has become our comfort zone. Sometimes we resist a solution because it’s not the solution we imagined and it brings us outside our comfort zone. Yet, often, as challenging as leaving our comfort zone is, that is where the relief can exist. Sometimes it doesn’t require us to completely change our vision, it simply requires us to slightly shift our vision.