Growth Begins Where Familiarity Ends
Are you naturally drawn to new experiences… or do you tend to stay within the boundaries of what feels safe and known?
Most of us are trained to stay within the boundaries of what we think we like, but we don’t grow by staying inside certainty. In fact, there is real benefit in actually choosing to seek out experiences that stretch our edges.
Now, when I say “stretch our edges”, I’m not talking about going beyond our physical boundaries. I’m talking about the emotional edges of ourselves. You know those places where we challenge what we think, believe, understand and value, and open up to new ways of understanding ourselves, others, and the world around us?
Let’s face it, that can be both confronting and revealing. But when we move toward those edges and open these parts of ourselves, we begin to see things differently.
Leaning into the edge
Sometimes “stretching our edges” gets misinterpreted as needing to travel more or do extravagant things, but that isn’t necessarily the case.
Art, for example, is a powerful and easy-to-access doorway into this kind of “edge exploration”.
In fact, both creating art or embodying expression ourselves, and being around art, such as going to exhibitions or experiencing dance o0r music performances, can help touch those edges within us.
This is one of the reasons why I’m so intentional about exposing my children to these experiences.
“How do you know you’ve reached an edge? You feel it in the body. A small hesitation. A resistance. Perhaps a flicker of curiosity when something unfamiliar appears. That moment, right there, is the edge.”
You can often notice when someone hasn’t explored their edges. They may lean toward black-and-white thinking, become stuck in one worldview, or operate under a self-created ceiling where comfort lives. But within that comfort can come an inability to be open to other perspectives or points of view.
Why the brain resists expansion
So if it’s so good for us to go beyond what’s familiar, why is it so hard to do?
Well, for one, opening up in this way can feel threatening to the brain.
It requires letting go of certainty, even admitting there might be other ways of seeing something, and that isn’t easy.
Our brain is designed to keep us safe, not necessarily to keep us open.
It looks for patterns, familiarity, and confirmation that what we already believe is correct.
By creating predictions and predictability in this way, it saves energy and gives us a sense of control.
Another reason is that the brain is wired to keep us safe, and when something challenges our existing view, it can interpret it as risk rather than opportunity.
So instead of curiosity, we may feel discomfort, defensiveness, or the urge to dismiss what doesn’t fit.
The brain wants coherence and closure.
It prefers neat answers over complexity.
So staying with the familiar isn’t laziness. It’s wiring.
The comfort of the familiar
We see this play out everywhere in the world today. Conspiracy thinking, for example, can feel attractive because it offers a simple answer to something complex. The brain prefers clarity over uncertainty.
Yet wisdom seems to live elsewhere.
In the ability to hold multiple truths at once.
In the practice of remaining present in the unknown without needing a final answer.
In our capacity to hold self-authority while allowing our complexity to exist.
One way we cultivate that capacity is by extending our edges, by engaging with creativity, by seeing and experiencing things that are unfamiliar, by stepping into spaces that ask something different of us.
Real life contrast
The other night, I went to see a Nordic folk trio at one of the local venues. I was met by a small but deeply attentive audience, people open enough to step into something outside their usual experience, which was beautiful to see.
At the same time, I was struck by the reality that not everyone is ready for that kind of experience.
The venue was not even half full.
That interests me.
Now, part of the reason for that may be translation. When culture travels to another country, the language needed to invite others in doesn’t always translate well.
Another reason may be promotion, or not enough of it. Enough people may simply not have known about the concert.
But I suspect a big part of the underlying reason may be comfort.
Comfort in staying inside what is familiar.
We gravitate toward what feels known. It takes effort to seek out experiences outside our comfort zone. We hesitate to invest time and attention in something unfamiliar, especially when it isn’t a guaranteed safe bet. Yet within uncertainty is growth. The opportunity to expand, and to go deeper.
“Familiarity soothes us.
The unfamiliar expands us.”
And then, on the other end of the spectrum, around the same time as this event, I found myself in an hours-long queue trying to buy tickets for Tame Impala. There were 10,000 people ahead of me in the queue, and when I was finally let in and my long wait was over, I still couldn’t get tickets.
That contrast fascinates me.
Now, this isn’t a judgement. Kevin Parker, or Tame Impala, is an extraordinary artist. Large-scale cultural moments serve an important role. They create shared experiences and collective energy.
But, and it’s a big but, alongside that there is also great value in seeking what sits slightly off-centre. Experiences that draw us into unfamiliar territory and expand our way of seeing. Into moments of deep creative intimacy and deep connection to something beyond our current reality.
Growth rarely happens inside what we already know.
And not much new happens when we choose the same road each time.
The question is: how far beyond your edges do you dare to go?