Comfort Isn’t the Problem. Autopilot Is.

Do you ever realize you picked up your phone before you even consciously decided to?

Or reacted emotionally before you even had time to think?

In this episode, we explore how modern life quietly trains us toward distraction, overstimulation, emotional autopilot, and disconnection… and why awareness may be one of the most important tools for growing in freedom.

This conversation dives into:

• stress patterns
• emotional reactions
• distraction and numbing
• discomfort avoidance
• nervous system conditioning
• intentional awareness
• spiritual and emotional growth
• and how participation in real life reconnects us to ourselves and to God

This is not about rejecting technology or modern life.

It’s about staying awake inside of it.

You’ll also walk away with practical ways to build awareness in your everyday life through small moments of intentional discomfort, reflection, slowing down, and paying attention.

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#IntentionalLiving #EmotionalHealing #ChristianPodcast #Awareness #NervousSystemHealing #FreedomCampPodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Freedom Camp Podcast, rooted in truth, growing in freedom, and built on the belief that you weren't meant to grow alone. Each week I'll share honest stories, insights, and simple questions to help you explore the unseen things that keep you from living in the freedom that's already yours. And take brave intentional steps toward the life you were made for. This is your space to reconnect with your authentic self and grow in freedom on purpose. Or opened the fridge when you weren't hungry or turned on Netflix automatically? How about reacting emotionally before you even thought about it? I think a lot of people feel disconnected from themselves right now and they don't know why. And I think we're living in a world designed to keep us distracted, stimulated, consuming, and emotionally numb. But comfort is not the enemy. Living on autopilot is. Our modern life is often full of notifications, constantly notifications, of scrolling, of streaming, of Amazon subscriptions, or access to global information at our fingertips. There's constant stimulation. There's convenience culture everywhere. And still the you deserve it, the you know, have it your way entire mentality. Like the world is just waiting for us to consume it, and not so much for us to consider it and take care of it and be thoughtful about it and interact with it. And this isn't me saying that technology is evil, and I'm not saying to throw your phone out and go move to the woods, although I do recommend it. The goal is not to reject modern life, but the goal is to stay awake within modern life. The scary thing about autopilot is we often don't realize that we're on it. Some examples are things like our stress patterns, um, emotional reacting, our thought loops, which we've been discussing the last two podcasts, the way that perhaps we eat when we're stressed or we don't eat, uh, maybe we go shopping. Uh, even things like seeking validation and needing noise constantly or some type of interference from just sitting with our own thoughts. Some of us have even been waking up so long, stressed out, like me, um, that our body now creates stress automatically. Gratefully, I've circumvented that finally, but about a year ago, I first realized that my body was so used to being stressed out in the morning, that even on a morning that wasn't rushed where I didn't have something due or someplace to be, my body was still like when my eyes would open, it was like, oh, shot of cortisol, shot of adrenaline, and and and whatever else it gave me a shot of to create this cocktail that I was so used to functioning in. And when you end up in a situation where your body is creating something automatically, perhaps an emotion, maybe you spend the majority of your life depressed or apathetic or angry. There is a chemical component to all of those things that our body is like a bartender and can be really good at mixing up that that drink for you and providing. Like, look, look at what a good body I am. I'm doing what you've trained me to do. But on autopilot, we don't realize that that's what we're doing. And so that's really where distraction and discomfort play a part in this whole process. Because I think one of the biggest reasons that we stay on autopilot is because we've become uncomfortable with discomfort. That or it's so easy to numb, to check out, to distract that that we don't even acknowledge it because it's so much easier to do any one of a thousand other things besides actually sit with discomfort. And some examples of some things that can be very uncomfortable for some of us are perhaps silence or uncertainty, um, accepting risk, being bored, uh, grief or sadness or loneliness, even things like waiting, and definitely things like disagreement and disapproval. Oftentimes we may love and respect someone in our lives, and they may disagree with a choice that we're making for our career or parenting or where we're gonna live or any number of things. The point is that feeling of disapproval or disagreement can be so uncomfortable for so many of us that we abandon ourselves and our needs and our wants and where God is taking us in our life for the sake of avoiding that disagreement or that disapproval. But if every uncomfortable moment gets interrupted immediately so that it isn't felt, then we never learn what's underneath that discomfort. We scroll, we binge watch, we shop, we eat, we distract, we numb. And often the very freedom that we're looking for is right underneath the very thing that we keep avoiding. But awareness changes things. The moment you notice the pattern, you're no longer fully trapped inside of the pattern. Doesn't mean just because you noticed it one time it'll never happen again. But once you notice it, now that new pathway has been started. That little trail has been started. So one of the things that you can do to help yourself to grow in awareness is to bring in intentional discomfort. Some examples are things like maybe you want to uh pray before you have any social media on your phone. Maybe sitting in silence in the car. Maybe sitting anywhere without stimulation or stand without stimulation. Um maybe not immediately reacting, or cooking from scratch, maybe journaling. Uh, there's lots of journaling prompts in past podcasts, um, maybe fasting, or having a difficult conversation. All of these things can bring in intentional discomfort, and that intentional discomfort retrains your awareness. So, again, the goal isn't hardship for hardship's sake, the goal is awareness and participation and connection and presence. And that leads me to one of the reasons that I love the farming and the homesteading that I do with my family so much, because it draws me into a place of participation, and often participation with things that I can't control, and and things that are of nature, that are not even man-made or something that that can really be manipulated. Uh, the animals do not care if I am tired, they do not care if it's been below freezing for four days, they don't care if it's 95 degrees. They need water, they need food, they need shelter, and it doesn't matter what else is going on, those things need to happen for them. The garden doesn't care if I'm in a hurry for the lettuce to grow or for some of the blueberries on the bushes in front of my window here to ripen. It goes at its own pace and its own time. And nature is continuously providing opportunities for me to build resilience, awareness, and to lean into the discomfort, we can't rush our growth, we can't get a four-hour delivery on deep roots and growing in freedom. So this week, instead of trying to overhaul your entire life, although if if the momentum is there, go for it. Don't ever let me slow you down in any way, shape, or form. Uh, I only say that because I don't want people to feel overwhelmed that they need to overhaul their entire life. The encouragement is to just practice noticing. Like notice what do you reach for automatically? Do you reach for, you know, coffee or tea or caffeine? Or do you reach for water automatically? Notice what makes you uncomfortable. Notice what you do when silence shows up. Notice the moments that you immediately try to escape, numb, fix, control, ignore, or distract. And then I encourage you to create one small moment of intentional awareness each day. Maybe you want to sit outside for five minutes without your phone in whatever the weather is. Maybe you want to do the praying before having any social media. Maybe you want to drive somewhere without any noise. Maybe you want to journal instead of scrolling. A great question to ask yourself is what am I feeling right now? Maybe you want to take one uncomfortable breath before distracting yourself. Awareness grows where interruption stops. And we can't change patterns that we never notice are there to be changed. Because freedom often doesn't begin with some giant breakthrough. It often begins simply by paying attention, one honest moment at a time. If conversations like this encourage you, I send out a weekly um Freedom Camp newsletter. It's got practical tools, reflections, uh, behind the scenes thoughts, and even what's coming up next. It's no spam, it's one thoughtful, encouraging uh email that the entire goal is to help you to become more awake, more grounded, and more free. The link is in the show notes or the description below if you would like to check that out. And I want to leave you with one thought that freedom begins the moment we notice that we've drifted. Thanks so much for listening to the Freedom Camp Podcast. Thanks for listening to the Freedom Camp Podcast, where we believe freedom is nurtured from within and grows when you tend to it. If this stirred something in you, let it take root this week and see what grows. And if you enjoyed this or found it meaningful, please give the gift of a review, share it with a friend, and leave a comment below. It helps us build this podcast community because we weren't meant to grow alone.