Being able to accept discomfort without trying to escape it is good for us, especially if we want to stop repeating the same life lessons over and over again. We need to brave-up, woman-up or man-up (depending on your gender) and allow ourselves to feel it, live it, and stay with it, whatever ‘IT” might be. Only then can we gain a true understanding of “IT” and a chance to resolve “IT.”
We use clichés like “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” But instead of digging in and working hard, our society literally “gets going” and moves on to a new thing. We also go to our "happy place” to escape. Both strategies work for a while, but they focus our attention away from what’s bothering us and offer us no space for learning and no chance for reconciliation.
No doubt fully experiencing your feelings is uncomfortable. Most of us are wired to avoid pain. When I’m crying I want to stop crying, when I am in pain I want out of pain, when I am anxious, I want to stop being anxious but when I stop without accepting and understanding the root of those feeling, I am just putting a Bandaid on a leaky dam that will eventually break open again and again.
When I tried this myself I have to admit my symptoms did seem worse at first. I think that’s what stops us, we think we are making ourselves feel bad, but in reality the depth of our feelings were always there, we are just masters at masking them. Two things I know for sure about life “you can’t make people like you, they do or they don’t, and you can’t make yourself feel something, you do or you don’t.”
So the next time you have uncomfortable feelings, live with them, invite them to stay a little longer, each time increasing the time. Recognize them as your teacher and learn from them. You WILL feel uncomfortable, but you WILL survive, that I know for sure, too.
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