[exploring edges and expanding]
Table of Contents
Good morning (or day), Boldly Unbounded Soul ☀️
I had planned to deep-dive into cultivating safety and connection in the body this week, and then I had one of those ‘Aha Moments.” The ones you can’t ignore, so today, I’ll share with you one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced in my life and the “Aha Moment” that came along with it.
It’s all about edges, which reminds me of a colleague I had a Powerful Question Convo with last week. We’ve been through thick and thin together—and last week, I witnessed a woman in her Power. Power with a BIG P! Talk about unique Personal Power—the girl’s got it! She’s boldly showing up and facing unexpected challenges in her career. She’s exploring her edges and expanding beyond them into the person she really wants to be.
Want to know the most beautiful part? When I started working with her, staying within those edges was her MO. She experienced a lot of fear, self-doubt, and anxiety. And those intense emotions—as we can all relate—held her back. But in the last 9 months, something changed deep within her.
Even if fear, self-doubt, and anxiety still make an appearance (which is normal), she’s choosing courage. Courage to embrace ambiguity, care for herself more than her job, define what success looks like for her life and career, and apply for Director-level roles. She’s already achieving what she thought was impossible this time last year.
So, I want to say to you (and you know who you are)—you inspire me. You are why I coach. And I know that your life is about to flourish in ways you could never have imagined. I dedicate this week’s newsletter to you 💗
Explore Your Edges
Edge talk. We all have them, but what are they? Edges are the boundaries or limits we create for ourselves.
Think of it like a map—everything on the map is what’s possible. It’s known. It’s our present—our, beliefs, values, and world as we see them today.
Everything off the map is what we believe is impossible. It’s unknown. Yet, it’s where the magic lives. Because when we go off the map—we move from a navigator to an explorer. We begin to create our future and EVERYTHING becomes possible.
So, how do you know when you’ve found an edge? Well, if you read We create our future and EVERYTHING becomes possible, and thought, “Well, not everything’s possible,” you've just found an edge.
Here are 3 other ways to spot edges, and I recommend experimenting with all of them.
Body-Mind Edge Mapping
Your body and mind combined are super powerful. Listen to them, especially when they conflict with each other.
For example, say you get an amazing job offer. Your dream job. You think “Wow! I’ve been waiting to this moment. It’d be foolish not to take it,” yet your body’s saying the opposite. You start clenching your jaw, waking up for hours in the middle of the night with racing thoughts, and you feel that oh-so-familiar tightness in your chest.
You’ve found an edge, and I’d venture to say that taking the job may keep you limited to the map. Of course, fear surfaces when we face new things—so it’s not always the case—but it’s key to understand what that fear is telling you. Is it trying to keep you safe? Or is it a limiting belief?
Your 100-ish Deepest Desires
This is an adapted exercise I learned from one of my coaches, and I LOVE it! Write down at least 100 things you deeply desire in your life.
It can include simple things like a morning coffee or watching the sunrise. It could be material objects like owning a home or those sneakers you’ve been dreaming of. It could be experiences like travel or eating at that Michelin star restaurant. Or non-tangible things like feeling deeply connected to yourself or having a community that inspires you to be a better person.
The only rule—you must write a minimum of 100 deep desires. It’ll start easy, and as your list grows, it’ll get harder to think of things. If you get to 100 easily, keep going. Add on 20 more at a time until it’s ridiculously challenging to think of more. Highlight all of the ones you wrote down that were hard to come up with. When it gets hard, you’ve found your edge. The hardest ones are off-the-map desires.
Explore Your Mission
Your mission encompasses your values, who you are, on how you define success. It’s all about your being and guides your doing. Some think of it as their purpose in life. I like to think of it as working toward something meaningful in your life so there’s not so much pressure to “find your purpose.”
Now, if your mission doesn’t scare you, it’s not big enough. You’re living on the map. It’s an invite to expand. Here’s a simple framework to clarify your mission:
Part 1. Close your eyes and breath. Rest into yourself. Notice your breath and on the next exhale allow the body to relax. Now, bring to mind an accomplishment you are so deeply proud of. It’s visceral. You might feel a warmth in your chest, tear up, or feel deeply connected to something greater than yourself. Repeat this a few times, and look for patterns. These are your golden threads—they weave throughout your life. They point to your values and create a successful, meaningful life for you.
Part 2. Now, grab a pen and paper and create 3 columns. Label them with the following: Learn, Experience, and Contribute.
List everything that comes to mind. No filtering. Big or small. It doesn’t matter how practical it is.
Ask yourself, “Do they feel connected to my golden threads from the first part of the exercise?” When you write them down, it’s important you feel energized about them.
When you think you’ve got them all, ask yourself, “What else?” three more times.
A Story of Edges & the Aha Moment
Now, for the “Aha Moment.” The past year has been full of edges in my life. I’m sharing the journey with you because we all have edges and each person’s process is unique. It’s also important to know you’re not alone. We all have edges.
A bit of context… From 2017 to 2022, Chinmay (my husband) and I were on visas to live in Spain (we were pre-digital nomad visa people). The weight of maintaining a visa was heavy. Maintaining Chinmay’s green card was even heavier. Every decision was filtered through, “Will this risk us losing our visa or Chinmay’s green card?” And then in June 2022, we got our EU permanent residency.
The world opened up for us. We could work without sponsorship. We had access to public healthcare. We could buy a home more easily. I landed my dream job with an amazing team in July 2022, and I thought (again), “I’ve made it.” And I did in some aspects, but more edges started to surface in December 2022 after the first round of layoffs.
Half of my team disappeared. My role shifted into a people manager and IC role. I even filled in for the VP of People during a month-long sabbatical, so 3 roles at one point. It was overwhelming with edges. Some good—helping me up level as a leader—others not so good—middle of the night worries about my team’s wellbeing and the 2024 People strategic planning.
My old friend, “Is this really it?” started to visit me daily, and I knew I was hitting cycle of stuck. It became clear that I needed to explore my edges more deeply, so I started working with a coach again. I found 3 HUGE edges:
While I loved working in People & Culture, coaching energized me way more… but I was too scared to go after it full-time. I didn’t believe I was ‘good enough’ to be a solopreneur.
I believed I needed a VP title to be successful in my career instead of becoming my own CEO. It felt like cheating the system.
I wasn’t ready to go solo because I still had more self-work to do. #RecoveringPerfectism
AND THEN…
A second layoff in August 2023 and my role was impacted. And then Chinmay’s role one month later. No more illusion of security so I decided to face my edges. I started taking steps toward a dream I had had for years.
Take time to enjoy slowing down. Prioritize my health even more—mental, emotional, and physical. Then, launch Boldly Unbounded. Enroll in a year-long mastermind to support solopreneur life. Work with another coach to deepen my coaching skills. Learn marketing basics and fail a lot when it comes to marketing. Invite people to connect and have powerful conversations…
And I actively expanded beyond those 3 edges.
Then came a test. And another 2 months later. Two amazing job opportunities—leading the People function at fully remote companies. During the interview process, my body immediately told me, “NO!” And just like my colleague, I chose courage instead of fear. I withdrew my candidacy.
The best part? Discomfort has become my baseline in the past year, and I cherish that feeling now. It’s a positive sign that I’m moving toward who I really want to become.
The cycle of edges and rising is a part of a life-long process. Expand. Find new edges to move beyond. Expand again. Find new edges. It repeats over and over.
Now it’s time for you to expand. Ready?
Expand into The Boldly Unbounded Version of You
Before we talk about uncomfortable as a baseline, let’s talk about safety and connection.
Regulate The Body
Remember when I talked about fear earlier? Regulating your body helps you decode what that fear is telling you.
An innate human need for thriving is feeling safe and connected. It starts with the body. If your body doesn’t feel safe—it sets off an alarm—thrusting you into survival mode. When that happens? Well, a lot of things that we’ll go into next week…
But for now, there’s one super important thing. The learning center of the brain shuts down. It becomes impossible to learn and expand beyond our edges. Learning is a life source. Kind of like breathing… which brings me to a simple, yet powerful practice.
I use this practice to regulate the body and cultivate body-mind awareness with my clients (and myself). Here’s what it looks like:
Sit or stand in your space. Could be at home, the gym, workplace, cafe, or somewhere else. No dark alleyways, please 😉
Bring your attention to your feet and your back body (back of the head, back, legs, all the way to your heels).
Breathe in deeply, and as you exhale allow the face to soften.
Slowly begin to scan the space around you. Pick one object to observe. Notice its color, form, smell, sound… Allow your senses to rest there for a bit. Allow your senses to receive rather than retrieve. You can slowly allow your focus to expand into the greater space. Receiving what is around you.
Notice the breath. Observe the body. What sensations might be arising? How might it be responding to your space, signaling that you are safe in it?
Deepen the breath for an inhale of 5 seconds and exhale of 8 seconds. Repeat 3-5 times, or as long as you like. Gently close the practice in your mind, and continue your day.
Shift Your Mindset & Rewire the Brain
One way shifting your mindset happens is through repeating new beliefs until you’ve created new neural pathways, and they become second nature. One simple way you can do this is pick one limiting belief and create an “antidote belief” to replace it.
For example, I used to think, “I can never be a runner.” Why? I broke my leg 400 meters into a 4x800 track competition in high school. I finished the last 400 meters, collapsed, and didn’t realize I had broken my leg until the next day. Needless to say, when I found out, the belief my body wasn’t made for running became true.
Fast forward 16 years, I decided to introduce the antidote belief, “I want to learn how to run.” The result? After repeating this belief daily for a month, I developed a genuine interest. I looked up how to learn how to run and took 3 months to allow my body to adapt, listening to its signals.
Now, I run 2-4km every day, and I’m a runner.
Visualize It
Another reason edges are scary is because you can’t see what’s on the other side. Our brains are wired for clarity. Ambiguity is perceived as a threat. But the brain can be tricked (cue evil mastermind laugh)! It’s called visualization.
Go back to your Mission activity. Visualize yourself doing the things that you wrote down under Learn, Experience, and Contribute. Feel them as if they are happening in the moment. Visualize how you’ll respond to obstacles that come up along the way. This will 1) tell your brain you’re safe, and 2) make the impossible seem possible.
Try to visualize daily. After 2 weeks, you’ll feel it. After 4 weeks, you’ll see it with clarity. After 8 weeks, it will become a part of you.
Love the Discomfort
As we wrap up, there’s one more thing. When you start to explore and expand beyond edges, the process can be uncomfortable. Like, really uncomfortable.
So as you embark on this journey, here are 3 tips to make sure you find the ideal level of discomfort (too much discomfort deregulates the body):
Search for one insight during the discomfort. Get curious and try to find one insight that changes how you see yourself and the world around you. If you can’t find one you might be in a dysregulated state, or you might need someone to help you identify the limiting belief(s) blocking an insight.
Reframe, reframe, reframe. Remind yourself that being uncomfortable is a sign you’re growing. When you’re comfortable too often for too long, that’s when you feel stuck.
Listen to your body. If you’re getting the sweats, waking up in the middle of the night, or feeling anxious, back off on the discomfort. You’ll know it when you feel it. The process isn’t about pushing yourself to extremes. It’s about practicing self-compassionate while you find your edges to expand beyond them.
💗 Simply put, learn to love the uncomfortable, don’t just be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
P.S. Want to start exploring your edges? I’ve got 5 questions to ask you that will challenge and provoke your thinking. Would that be interesting to you?
