Very few of us seek out discomfort. We’re comfort loving creatures and anyone who has spent even a few minutes watching TV has likely seen ads for ways to make your home more comfortable, or for all the ways a new car would ramp up your comfort. As a culture we rather like comfort and there is nothing, really, wrong with comfort.
But where things get tricky is our fleeing from discomfort. There is a saying about comfort and discomfort that learns from the lobster. Being vulnerable is uncomfortable, and this is where lobsters have us beat. Because a lobster encased in a shell cannot grow unless it occasionally sheds that shell and spends a very dangerous, vulnerable, uncomfortable amount of time soft and squishy while its new shell hardens. The solution it might seem would be to just not shed, but that too would lead to discomfort as the lobster grew and grew inside that shell until there was no more room to grow, stuffed in like a sausage, unable to move or breathe. Discomfort is inevitable, we can resist it, or we can accept it and grow but we cannot avoid it.
When we’re unfamiliar with discomfort it can feel apocalyptic, world ending. The fear of discomfort becomes its own kind of discomfort and we may find ourselves caught in a rising spiral of anxiety and distress that gets worse the harder we try to escape it.
No one wants to hear this but the solution is to seek out discomfort, to become comfortable with it, to learn to be uncomfortable until the fear of discomfort is tamed. The ways we learn to spend time with discomfort will vary greatly, I run long distances. And don’t let anyone fool you, running is uncomfortable. There is no way to run 10 miles and never feel discomfort (or a mile, or even a few feet in the beginning). Humans are really quite good at running, despite our awkward upright stance, and yet running is uncomfortable. If you take up the sport you discover quickly that while your body adapts rather quickly it will still try to convince your brain that you should stop running, and your brain will be doing its own arguing that running when there are no tigers around is just silly. You become a runner when you keep going anyway, running is about choosing to continue despite discomfort.
But you don’t have to be a runner, or any sort of athlete to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Anyone who has learned a new language has also wrestled with this feeling. There comes a time when you have to move beyond the safety of lessons, when you have to turn on the TV show in Mandarin, or pick up the book in French, or talk to your neighbor in Urdu and it will be uncomfortable. You won’t be good at it. You’ll find yourself grasping for words, feeling awkward and confused, maybe even embarrassed, you will make mistake. But the only way you will continue to get better is if you… continue in your discomfort. And slowly that edge will move. A year ago running a mile felt almost impossible (lots of walk breaks were required), now I’m considering a marathon (which will be very uncomfortable). The first conversation with your neighbor in Urdu will feel awkward, embarrassing, and strange. But a few years down the road you’ll find things only get uncomfortable when the conversation gets technical or hits on topics you haven’t been exposed to yet. The line moves, the discomfort always marks our growing edges like an invitation.
You have probably heard about the “window of tolerance,” it is all the rage in pop-psychology but it is often badly misunderstood. The goal is not to never leave your window of tolerance, first because that is impossible and second, because that would lead to a very dull and probably stiffing life with little if any growth. Just outside the edges of your comfort there is a zone of discomfort where optimal learning happens. It is not so uncomfortable that you are in real danger, and yet it does not feel like a calm nap on a sunny afternoon. In running we differentiate between safe discomfort (the kind that leads to growth) and danger signals (the kind that lead to injury) in noticing the difference between sharp pain (stop), and dull low level discomfort (keep going). In that discomfort zone, no matter the activity there is real vulnerability, we will fail, we will be awkward, we won’t know what to do. And that is where the magic happens.
The skill is to learn to stay with that discomfort for just longer than you think you can. Maybe you promise a walk break after the big oak tree, or after the next three math problems but when parts of you want to give up before the goal you gently but firmly persist despite discomfort. And the more we spend time in discomfort and begin to see the fruits of that work the better we become at choosing areas of productive discomfort. Cultivating our ability to choose discomfort, to stay with it teaches us that discomfort is something we will survive. When we learn to spend time in discomfort by choice we help our brain learn that discomfort comes and goes, and our world does not end.
This matters when discomfort we did not choose comes our way. We’ve had practice, we have more space to experience the discomfort that is inevitable in life as something that will pass, rather than a catastrophe to escape. Because we have become more comfortable with discomfort we disrupt the spiral into anxiety, fear, or low mood that discomfort can otherwise trigger.
What do you notice about your relationship to discomfort recently? In what ways do you step outside your comfort zone and choose discomfort? In what ways would you like to learn, grow, or improve that could involve choosing discomfort? What support do you need to reach these goals?
Curious about how to build more resilience? Therapy is a helpful tool in this quest! You can find out more about my Jungian practice or my EMDR work.
