I’ve been making an attempt to do a couple of issues otherwise in 2025.
Particularly, shifting in direction of moments or issues that make me uncomfortable.
(I don’t imply “occasions when I’m in bodily hazard,” after all.)
However somewhat, I’m going to run towards the issues that my mind tells me, “That is uncomfortable, I don’t like this, keep away from it in any respect prices.”
The e-mail I’m afraid to open. The dialog I’m afraid to have. The query I’m afraid to ask. The flexibility to be alone with my ideas (yikes).
Once I attain for my cellphone or Netflix or Ps controller to keep away from being bored or uncomfortable or unhappy or responsible…
I’m making an attempt to construct some self-discipline to pause first.
To not keep away from, distract, or entertain myself away from what’s actually occurring.
To not zone out or run away, Monty-Python type.
If I’ve the braveness to sit down there and actually ask the query, “Why is that this making me really feel uncomfortable?” there’s helpful classes to be discovered.
Lean into The Discomfort
Writer Pema Chodron lays out the next in her e-book When Issues Fall Aside:
“We regard discomfort in any type as dangerous information.
…emotions like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and concern.
As an alternative of being dangerous information, these are literally very clear moments that train us the place it’s that we’re holding again.”
This stuff will be unimaginable academics if we give ourselves the house to be taught.
However that’s fairly the ask in 2025:
Due to the web and our telephones and same-day supply, we will spend each minute of day by day hiding from practically each single uncomfortable feeling in our lives. We by no means need to be bored, we by no means need to really feel “dangerous,” we by no means have to deal with the elephant within the room.
We will simply swipe, click on, faucet, or disassociate to keep away from any and all “dangerous” emotions.
We will disguise from them with infinite leisure and luxury (even when it retains us from getting what we actually need).
In fact, these dangerous emotions don’t go away—they’re nonetheless there, and the issues we’re avoiding will finally must be handled.
When I attempt to disguise from discomfort, I do know I’m not truly avoiding it. I’m not maintaining it boxed up.
I’m trapped in Pandora’s Field with the monsters.
Blaise Pascal, a Seventeenth-century thinker, stated it finest:
“All of humanity’s issues stem from man’s incapacity to sit down quietly in a room alone.”
These Emotions are Making an attempt to Train Us!
Many emotions of discomfort are screaming to show us one thing if we will reframe how we really feel about them.
As Chodron factors out:
“They’re like messengers that present us, with terrifying readability, precisely the place we’re caught.
This very second is the right instructor, and, fortunate for us, it’s with us wherever we’re.”
Life has a means of constructing that quiet, uncomfortable feeling get louder and louder till we will’t assist however tackle it…
However we will save ourselves fairly a little bit of time if we acknowledge the concern, lean in sooner, and acknowledge life is making an attempt to show us one thing.
That’s my problem for you this week.
What if…
We requested, “Am I actually hungry, or am I simply soothing myself with meals?”
We acknowledged we had been scared or anxious or nervous after which requested (with compassionate curiosity) what was behind the sensation?
Life is making an attempt to show us classes day by day.
We simply need to be brave sufficient to be uncomfortable to see it.
-Steve
Discussion about this post