Change Requires Extremes: Creating Conscious Growth in Our Lives

Any external stimulus will have an effect on us.

Just like a cupcake will spike our blood sugar levels upward before they come plummeting back down, everything we ingest has an impact on the human system to a greater or lesser degree. This is obvious with physical stimuli like food, drink, drugs and exercise. But it also holds true for everything else: entertainment, environment, information, conversation… everything that comes to us from the outside or arises in our experience from within.

Humans are creatures of homeostasis, which means that our system naturally inclines towards equilibrium and balance. Imagine a roller coaster that rises a hundred feet into the air with dips and drops and gut-wrenching loops, but must still eventually come back down so its passengers can return to earth. No matter where we go, we always come back to earth — inner equilibrium.

As we manage our experience within the system of the human body-mind, we are given the choice about how much of any particular stimulus to ingest. Should we eat another brownie or be satisfied with just one? Have we listened to enough radical political commentary or should we go down the rabbit hole? Is it time for more heavy metal music or do we balance it out with some calming classical? Making these choices responsibly and consciously, moment-to-moment, is the duty of all free human beings. And, because it is impossible to eliminate the body-mind from its environment full of stimuli, it is a responsibility that we cannot avoid.

Moderation is safe. Walking the path between “too much” and “too little” of any given stimuli, we create a balanced and stable platform for ourselves within the human system. This is the story of Goldilocks, who wandered into the house of the three bears and tasted their three bowls of porridge — one bowl was “too hot,” another was “too cold” but the third was “just right.” In many – if not most – situations, “just right” is exactly what we’re looking for.

But when we realize what we really desire in life, it is time to go beyond moderation. Our desires indicate a wish for some sort of change that hasn’t yet occurred, and only extremes generate change. Moderation leads directly back to homeostasis.

Moderation can also be seen as “any stimulus within our comfort zone,” while extremes are “any stimulus outside our comfort zone.” Our zone of comfort represents the set of inputs that our system feels comfortable ingesting and processing before returning to the way it was before. When we go outside that zone of comfort, our system will still be able to ingest and process whatever we feed it but we will not return to exactly the same place. In other words, when we leave our comfort zone, the roller coaster doesn’t set us down in the same place that we climbed aboard.

Creating conscious change in our lives is about deciding where to be moderate and where to be extreme. Or, in other words, it’s about deciding when to stay in our comfort zone and when to leave it. In areas of life where we are satisfied with the way things are, it is reasonable to stay moderate and comfortable. But in aspects of life where we are dissatisfied, then moderation will only return us to that same place. Over and over and over. In areas of our life where we desire growth, then, it’s time to go beyond moderation.

Physical health is a simple example. If we are happy with the state of wellness, energy and strength in our body then we can easily maintain that state through moderation of diet, rest and exercise. But if we desire more wellness, more energy and more strength, then it’s necessary to leave our comfort zone behind and experiment with more “extreme” inputs to the system. That might mean eating different kinds of food, giving ourselves more rest or implementing changes in our exercise routine. Bear in mind that what is extreme to one person might be moderate for another, so we can and should only choose these new inputs for ourselves.

There’s no guarantee about where we’ll end up when we embrace extremity. That’s part of what can make leaving our comfort zone so scary. The roller coaster just picks us up and whisks us away. All we know is that we’ll end up somewhere new. But when we desire change, new is enough.

We’ve heard it said, “Everything in moderation.” But it’s time to recognize, “Change requires extremes.”