A Nut Squeeze From a Male Nurse Helped Me Understand Personal Growth (It'll Work for You Too)

Keep those pants up. You don't need a literal squeeze to succeed.

During my treatment for leukemia, I told a doctor in passing that my balls hurt.

Don’t ask why. I don’t remember if that statement was true. Maybe I was lashing out at the medical industry. Maybe I was lashing out at the underwear industry. We’ll never know.

Either way, the doctor told me every complaint had to be followed up. I’d made my bed, and now I had to be examined in it.

That’s how I found myself staring up at the ceiling while a male nurse named Leonard, with hands the size of catcher’s mitts, performed a testicular exam.

Uncomfortable? You bet your ballsack it was.

But that moment taught me a ton about forward progress in life — and it’s relevant to you too.

Take it away, science

Recent research suggests discomfort can be a powerful catalyst for personal growth. 

According to the findings of a study conducted by smart folk at Cornell and the University of Chicago, “people invited to embrace discomfort were more motivated”. 

Instead of running from uncertainty, accepting their feelings of stress and awkwardness helped propel participants to new levels of growth and personal achievement.

But you probably didn’t need a bunch of boffins in white coats to tell you that.

Weightlifters increase the weight on the bar to stimulate micro-tears in their muscles. Muscles heal. Weightlifters become stronger. It’s the circle of life, baby.

Runners increase their weekly kilometres (or miles, depending on where they run). The gradual increase in distance causes a gradual increase in stamina.

As with the body, so is the mind. Mental gains require the same types of discomfort to stimulate growth.

No one takes a kayak up shit creek hoping to lose a paddle. But when difficulties occur, running from them or making moves to avoid them isn’t how you drive positive change.

Discomfort is a way to build resilience and self-confidence. And when you can reassign the meaning of discomfort before it happens, it can become a source of motivation instead of an obstacle.

You’re gonna squirm (and that’s OK)

Some things in life are gonna be awkward. 

You might accidentally call your job interviewer ‘Mum’. You might ask out a Bumble match only to learn she’s “washing her hair” for the next 86 consecutive Friday nights. Few paths to progress are obstacle-free.

The problem is that avoiding these difficult moments keeps you stuck where you are. You’ll never learn to overcome your job interview nerves; never learn to handle rejection with the resilience required to date.

Trust that you’ll survive the squirm. Not because you have a crystal ball and can peer into the future. But because you’ve always survived the squirm in the past.

Even if your current challenges feel new, you’ve spent your life doing things for the first time and overcoming uncertainty and look at you now.

If nothing else, tolerate discomfort

“Embrace discomfort” is the type of catchphrase you might hear at a corporate retreat or read on a bumper sticker. As far as practical advice goes, it’s pretty shit. 

If you could embrace discomfort, it probably wouldn’t be that uncomfortable in the first place.

Instead, learn to tolerate discomfort.

If you need a spirit animal, picture me getting my balls squeezed in a white hospital gown to make sure I was OK. Actually… scratch that, choose a better spirit animal.

Most of us resist change like cats resist bath water. But growth rarely happens in the comfort zone. That’s not an earth-shattering statement, but it is often forgotten.

When life throws you a curveball, instead of freaking out and running for the hills, see it as an opportunity to evolve, adapt, and become a better, more awesome version of yourself.

You don’t have to wake up hoping to be put in uncomfortable situations. But by accepting that awkward and stressful experiences are a natural part of life (yours and everyone else’s), you can start to reframe those experiences as much-needed and valuable parts of your evolution — not obstacles preventing you from evolving.

And when you work on this small mental shift, it’s easier to accept and overcome challenges as they arrive.

13-second summary: You’ve got this

You’re capable of doing whatever it is that you are hesitant to do.

You might have moments of doubt, but deep down, you have the power to overcome anything. Write a book. Eat a book. Do things entirely unrelated to books. Whatever your goals, lean into your discomfort and watch how it strengthens your resiliency and motivates you to push forward.

So get out there and do cool shit, one uncomfortable testicular exam at a time.

Oh, and for anyone wondering, my balls were fine.

With love,

New World Porter

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