Synopsis: Dr. Ko shares an unexpected lesson from building a 570-piece Lego set with his daughter: tackling hard challenges makes everything else feel easier. Drawing parallels between complex Lego builds and the discomfort of stepping outside our comfort zones, he explores how facing difficult experiences - whether in life or during ketamine therapy - expands our capacity to handle future challenges. Learn why embracing the hard moments during treatment can lead to breakthroughs and make daily life obstacles more manageable.
Introduction
Have you ever found yourself in a difficult or challenging situation where you felt there is no way you can handle this? I can, and I bet you have too. As humans, we love to avoid pain and difficulty, which can come with facing challenges. That's why we absolutely love our comfort zones. However, recently I received a lesson from an unlikely place. In this post, you'll discover with me what Legos taught me about embracing challenges and expanding my comfort zone, and how this relates to ketamine therapy.
Building a 570-piece LEGO ankylosaurus with my daughter took hours and left my fingers sore - but it taught me an unexpected lesson about how tackling hard challenges changes our perspective on future obstacles.
The 570-Piece Challenge
I was making Legos with my daughter a few weeks ago, and she wanted this baby ankylosaurus dinosaur, and it was a pretty cool Lego set because the tail would move and the head would move. And when we got it, I looked at the box and apparently it had like 570 pieces in this Lego (and I don’t build Legos that much), so I was like, "Oh my goodness, this is going to take a long time."
But we worked on it for hours and we were making and building this Lego, and even my fingers got sore. A few weeks after that, we got another Lego set. And this Lego set was only 100 pieces, and when my daughter and I were working on that, it was so much easier. I was like, "OMG, we are doing this so rapidly."
And literally just putting it together took, I don't know, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.
Why Hard Things Make Everything Easier
And I was thinking a lot about how this applies to life. And specifically, when we do hard things later, if another challenge comes up, we discover that those smaller challenges are actually easier. Very similar to initially doing that, you know, 500, 600-piece Lego versus doing a 100-piece Lego.
And this goes to the idea of the comfort zone. When I'm in my comfort zone and then I step outside of my comfort zone, it's literally uncomfortable. That's the definition of being outside of our comfort zone. Now, what's really cool about this is that the more challenges I face, the more I grow. My comfort zone actually expands each and every time.
The discomfort you might experience during ketamine therapy can feel overwhelming, but working through these challenging moments expands your comfort zone and builds resilience for navigating daily life.
How This Applies to Ketamine Therapy
So how does this relate to ketamine therapy? Sometimes during treatment it can be hard. You might see things or feel things that are really uncomfortable. But what's powerful about that is once you work through these experiences - processing them during integration and taking action on insights between treatments - life challenges that once seemed like a 570-piece Lego set become much easier to navigate.
One of the biggest fears about ketamine therapy is the unknown. What will come up during my treatment? Will I see something scary? What if I feel overwhelmed? While these are valid concerns and each person's experience is unique, here's what I've observed: the challenging moments during treatment often can lead to breakthroughs during and afterward.
Why? Because your comfort zone and horizons expand. Something that felt intolerable prior to treatments can become tolerable in daily life. Or perhaps you take advantage of the post-treatment neuroplasticity to build new habits that expand your capacity. Either way, you're building resilience - just like how tackling that 570-piece ankylosaurus made the 100-piece set feel so simple.
What previously looked like an overwhelming challenge now becomes something you discover you can totally handle.
Just like building complex LEGOs becomes easier with practice, facing life's challenges - including those in ketamine therapy - helps us grow and makes future obstacles more manageable. And remember, it's always more fun to build with support.
Conclusion
Building Legos with my daughter as she is growing up has been a wonderful reminder of finding the beauty in life's challenges, for challenges are a part of life. However, taking on the perspective that these difficult things are here to help us grow and expand helps ease our journey. Ketamine therapy can be similar to life - challenging experiences during treatment can powerfully shift your perspective as you approach daily life.
How can you apply what you discovered in this post? The next time you are navigating a difficult situation, think of it as a 570-piece Lego set, or if it's especially challenging, a million-piece set. Look at what you are facing as something that will help you grow and make the smaller challenges straightforward and easy to handle.
Remember, whatever challenges you may be facing in and outside of ketamine treatment, you are not alone. And no matter the size of the challenge you face, there are those to support you, whether that is a trusted friend or a local mental healthcare provider. Never hesitate to reach out no matter the size of the challenge, for sometimes it's more fun to build with a friend.
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Building a 570-piece Lego taught Dr. Ko a powerful lesson about comfort zones and ketamine therapy. Learn how facing challenges makes everything easier.
