Sitting With the Discomfort

There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.

I’ve noticed in myself how quickly I try to get away from uncomfortable feelings.

If I’m feeling sad, or frustrated, or anxious, or lonely… almost immediately, I want to do something about it.

Make it better.

Fix it.

Distract myself.

Move on and make it stop.

And I started wondering… why do we do that?

Why is it our first instinct to get away from the things that don't feel good?

Maybe you do this too.

We scroll.

We eat.

We stay busy.

We work.

We try to think our way out of it.

We tell ourselves, “It's not that bad.” or “I should be over this by now.”

Or for me it’s “I teach mediation! I teach mindfulness. I should be able to move past this! I feel like an imposter!”

We just keep moving because we don't really want to stop long enough to feel what's underneath these emotions.

I've caught myself doing that.

And sometimes I think we get so good at moving away from uncomfortable feelings that we forget we actually have another option.

We can sit with them. We can sit with the discomfort.

Not to fix them. Not to analyze them. And not to judge them.

Just notice them.

And I don't mean sitting there thinking about why you feel the way you feel, or beating yourself up.

I mean just noticing the feeling itself.

What does it feel like in your body?

Maybe anger feels like heat in your chest.

Maybe anxiety feels like a knot in your stomach.

Maybe sadness feels heavy.

Maybe grief feels like a weight you’re carrying.

Or maybe you don't feel anything at all. Maybe you just feel emptiness.

But what if, instead of immediately trying to change it, we could say:

Okay.

Here it is.

This is what I'm feeling right now.

And just let that be true.

I've been thinking about how uncomfortable that can actually be.

Because we're so used to believing that if we're feeling something uncomfortable, something has gone wrong.

But maybe a feeling doesn't mean something has gone wrong.

Maybe it's just a feeling.

Sometimes our emotions are information. Sometimes they have something to show us. Something to tell us. Like a messenger.

But then again, sometimes I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to find the lesson.

Maybe we don't always need a lesson.

Maybe sometimes it just needs to be felt.

And you know what?

A feeling can be here without taking over us.

I can feel angry without becoming an angry person.

I can feel sad without becoming sadness.

I can feel anxious without letting anxiety define me.

I can feel lonely without believing that I am alone in the world.

I can feel something without becoming it.

That's a really different way of relating to our emotions.

We can say “I feel this” instead of “I am this”

And I think there's something freeing about realizing that we don't have to be afraid of our own feelings.

We can let them be here.

We can breathe with them.

We can notice where they live in the body.

And we can give them some space.

Because feelings change.

They move.

They soften.

And sometimes they stay for a while.

Think about a wave.

You don't have to fight a wave.

You don't have to make it stop.

You can let it come.

And eventually, it moves.

And you can actually just ride the wave.

And I think emotions can be like that too.

So I'll challenge you when an uncomfortable emotion comes up:

Can you sit beside it?

Can you breathe with it?

Can you say,

This is here.

I don't have to fix it right now.

I can be here with this.

And maybe, little by little, we can begin to trust ourselves a little more.

We can learn:

I can be here with whatever arises. I can sit with the discomfort.

Maybe that's the real practice.

Not learning how to make every uncomfortable feeling go away…

but learning that we can be with ourselves while it's here.