There are seasons where life just feels heavy.

Pressure builds. Expectations pile up. Your body feels it. Your mind feels it. Your emotions feel it. Sometimes it can feel like everything is pressing in at once, and when you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to imagine anything good could possibly come from it.

Most of us just want the pressure to stop. But lately I’ve been thinking differently about pressure.

In so many ways, pressure is part of how growth happens. In nature. In our bodies. In our lives.

And maybe some of the hardest seasons we walk through are not meaningless interruptions… maybe they are part of what is shaping us.

Most of us don’t realize how quickly pressure can start to feel like proof that something is wrong, when in reality, pressure is often part of what creates growth, beauty, and transformation.

In this episode of the Be a Blaze Podcast, I talk about pressure, burnout, healing, and the unexpected beauty that can come from difficult seasons.

🎧 Listen to podcast Episode 44: Under Pressure - The Importance of Pressure

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Pressure Exists Everywhere in Nature

I started thinking about this after everything I shared in last week’s podcast about burnout, inflammation, exhaustion, and just recognizing how deeply I had been operating in stress and survival mode.

Being here in The Bahamas has forced me to slow down in ways I honestly needed.

I’m resting. I’m sleeping better. I’m getting sunlight. I’m eating differently. I’m breathing again.

And in the middle of all of that, I kept thinking about pressure.

Pressure creates fire. Pressure creates diamonds. Volcanic pressure deep inside the earth eventually creates entirely new land and some of the most fertile, beautiful places in the world.
Even a seed needs the pressure of dirt around it before anything can begin to grow.

The pattern is everywhere.

What If Pressure Is Creating Something?

And yet when we personally experience pressure, we often immediately think something is wrong.

We want out. We want relief. We want the discomfort to end.

And trust me, I get that. When you are actually inside a painful season, it does not feel inspiring. It just feels hard.

But what if pressure is not always evidence that things are falling apart? What if sometimes pressure is evidence that something is forming?

One of the hardest things about difficult seasons is that we usually cannot see what is being created while we’re living through it.

A seed underground cannot yet see the tree. Coal cannot yet see the diamond.

And we often cannot yet see what this current season is growing inside of us. Sometimes the growth is external. Sometimes it changes relationships, work, opportunities, direction, or priorities.

But sometimes the deepest growth is internal.

Peace. Wisdom. Boundaries. Strength. Love. Clarity. Joy.

Things that are real and powerful even though they are not tangible.

Becoming the Observer of Yourself

Something else I’ve been thinking about is how important it is to become the observer of yourself. To pause long enough to ask:

What got me here?
What patterns were operating?
What worked?
What didn’t?
What do I want to do differently moving forward?

Not from shame.
Not from self-judgment.

But from awareness. Because awareness changes things.

Don’t Rush Past the Growth

And if you are coming out of a season of pressure right now, don’t rush past what grew from it.

Notice it. Honor it. Celebrate it.

If someone found a rare diamond, they wouldn’t toss it aside and act like it had no value. They would admire it. They would recognize what it took to create it.

I think we can do the same with the growth that comes from our hardest seasons.

Not in a prideful way. But in a truthful way.

This is who I’m becoming. This is what I learned. This is what survived.

This is my blaze.