The Transformative Power of Discomfort

I realize that the invitation to lean into discomfort as a regenerative way forward is a REALLY hard sell. 

In our current world, where our attention and energy is being tasked with holding enormous + coexisting amounts of pain, grief, violence, genocide, exhaustion, and reckoning (personally, locally, and globally) it seems like COMFORT makes more sense as an offering. I agree. And this is where some cosmic trickster energy comes in to play, and asks us to get a little curious.

The deeper reality underneath a simplified ask to “learn how to be comfortable with discomfort” is that when we do this, unexpected alchemy happens. 

The hypothetical somatic math goes something like this: our attention + holding what is + discomfort = what we’re actually looking (longing?) for.

What are we looking for? Many things. I posit this may include: deeply rooted connection, steadfast self-trust, space for (yes ideation which is very important and also) embodying new possibilities, and the kind of personal + collective strength that can support hope and bolster the infinite imagination.

In other words, an internal solid foundation for all that collectively fosters life and offers another kind of comfort—safety. Not the kind of safety where threats don’t exist; that’s not what we’re working with. But the kind of safety that comes when we’re able to connect with others and experience threats together in a different way; a way that becomes workable and sustainable. 

A favorite touchstone from Gabor Maté': “Safety is not the absence of threat…; it is the presence of connection.”

Becoming comfortable with discomfort sounds simple. My experience is that it isn’t; it asks us to traverse galaxies, explore unknown caverns, and divest from pre-existing maps as we continuously unfold our own. But it also feels integral for change. That feels exciting. It also feels disruptive and subversive. It’s future building, while in the present.

I spoke to the importance of discomfort already (this video/audio), but before I step into another topic, I’d like a chance to hold this idea + practice a little more softly; to quilt it together in a way that may offer a gentler way of holding and integrating it.

If this calls to you and feels helpful, please take what works and leave the rest. If this feels like it might resonate, but there isn’t capacity hold it at this moment, bookmark it for later and trust that you’ll find it again at the perfect time. If it doesn’t call to you at all, that’s okay too.

The importance of becoming comfortable with discomfort started to consciously fascinate me when I started training in Somatic Experiencing and other similar modalities around trauma healing and the nervous system. I think many of us (including myself) are inclined to first approach “healing work” with the anticipation that our obvious and most imperative aim is to learn how to be really, really chill. To quickly learn how to become as zen as fucking possible, erase all panic and discomfort, and then after we master that, we transition into our final state of Fixed Human Being. Social media amplifies this with its constant chatter of “regulate your nervous system already!”, usually equating regulation with feelings of calmness and comfort, regardless of what is happening.

In my training sessions, instead of starting with something like “How To Erase Panic and Pain In Three Easy Steps,” they instead started with: let’s begin by becoming comfortable with the activation that’s already happening. In other words, learning how to be comfortable with discomfort.

The work was, “Okay, we feel like we're on fire, it’s alarming as fuck, and we feel like we might die. Because this is already happening, can we hang out with it together?” 

Instead of dismissing it or trying to suppress it, I slowly learned how to see it, witness it, observe it, and hold it with the other person. And then, together, we would notice what happened when space was held for “being with what is.” The incredible part is that, quite often, something organically shifted on its own. The alarm bells might still be ringing, but the volume starts to decrease. Space is created for something else to emerge. Wisdom comes from the alarm bells, and a connection is made. Sometimes the alarm bells just needed to be heard, and after they’re witnessed they feel safe enough to rest. This can then allow other wisdom to come through. All of this through being with what is.

Alchemy. 

Our attention + holding what is + discomfort = alchemy.

 I want to be clear that when I invite us to make space for discomfort, I’m not asking anyone to find more ways to make yourself suffer or hurt. Not at all. I’m speaking more to the slower tending of exploring the cracks and crevices that already exist within. Not in a pathologizing way, these uncomfortable cracks and crevices are portals for expansion. We’re not “healing them away” but rather using intention and curiosity to explore them as a way of expanding our capacity to experience more possibilities.

Awareness as a tool.

In our colonial, Western society, there is a tendency to dive into something very urgently, quickly and deeply - often in a way that completely overwhelms our system and leaves us ricocheting backward as we try to regain footing again. This isn’t a judgement (Hi, it’s me! I do this!), simply a pattern that is interesting to notice.

This serves a purpose for systems in power; if we are constantly diving head first into more than our system can hold space for, we essentially dive straight into collapse and shutdown; missing a gentler discomfort possibility. It then takes an enormous amount of energy to recover, and once we’ve regained any semblance of energy we’re told we must urgently dive in again. This keeps us in an endless cycle of brutal devastation and clamoring recovery, which doesn’t allow us to access our awareness and direct our energy in a way that might offer another way of being.

Bayo Akomolafe writes “the times are urgent; let us slow down.” (Read this, you’ll love it.)

It seems counterintuitive, and it IS counterintuitive within our colonial mindset. Which is precisely the point. Within this slowness, we are able to Both And. Able to both respond to crisis as it is happening, and also to hold space to question the questions – to befriend our discomfort which allows us to THEN hold multiplicity (key), form connections (also key), collaborate in new ways (super key) and find possibilities that didn’t feel accessible before (!!!).

The great news is that discomfort is everywhere, and I’m watching it increase collectively. (Remember slowness here, if anxiety pops up! Or maybe gently ask the anxiety what it's worried about/what's happening underneath it?) We’re being asked to reckon with what we were raised with as “normal” or “real". Through following our internal compass, we’re now learning how to exist within systems that we live within + personally embody while also consciously divesting from and holding other realities… all at the same time. We’re releasing binary restrictions by holding multiplicity within ourselves and finding it all around us. We’re gathering around the cracks and witnessing their potential.  It’s deeply uncomfortable and incredibly beautiful to behold.

And we don’t have to do this alone.

While running errands today, I was listening to this podcast episode where Bayo said, “Cultivating wisdom seems to me to be the work of picking seeds out of the cracks. [....] The cracks proliferate and give birth to new kinds of realities and new possibilities. And that’s wisdom.

And I think the thing to do is to convene and attempt to sit with these cracks, these openings as wisdom; as an invitation. It’s probably to dance and sing and cook around it. To convene a classroom around the cracks. This isn’t some poetic, abstract work, this is historical. There is precedence for this. 

There’s a lot of people – visionaries, thinkers, scholars, grandmothers, and grandfathers – that have, in small homeopathic villages of refusal, convened worlds around cracks. By sitting with these moments, we make possible new choreographies; new worlds.”

May we convene around the cracks together. May we dance, and sing, and cook around our discomfort. And may the brilliance of what comes from within offer exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.

So be it, so it is.