Lean Lovingly Into Discomfort

It is a quality of human nature to seek comfort and avoid pain. However the rites of passage we experience in life, once passed through, reinforce upon reflection that we are not serving our growth and expansion by avoiding pain and discomfort.

All of the major growth opportunities and transformations in my life came from willingly (and sometimes reluctantly) moving into uncomfortable challenges, not from avoiding them. Stepping into unfamiliar territory can be frightening and intimidating. Causing us to question if we are strong enough to endure and make it out alive. The truth is, that we become more alive by stepping into pain and discomfort. They are unavoidable qualities of existence - a divinely intended curriculum for our growth.

When we avoid challenges due to fear of facing discomfort and pain, the avoidance and resistance does not prevent the pain, quite the opposite. The resistance and avoidance merely displaces and intensifies the manner in which we experience pain and adds to it a larger dose of suffering. It carries with it a life depleting pain, the type of pain that serves no purpose other than to increase the intensity and duration of our suffering.

When we lean into our challenges, along with the pain and discomfort that accompanies it, we endeavor to move through and past it, as opposed to moving against it. We apply a life affirming form of pain that cultivates confidence, resilience, fortitude and self love. The pain and suffering we cultivate through resistance and avoidance of challenges is life depleting and it cultivates fear, insecurity and self hatred.

Pain and discomfort give us an understanding of our resilience and serve to educate us on the shortcomings of the mind and ego. The mind and ego tend to approach pain and discomfort with resistance and avoidance at all cost. They are threatened by these two things because the mind and the ego like to stay in a predictable state of control. When we lean into pain and discomfort we re-educate the ego to be in service to the higher, ever evolving self and minimize the tendency for seeking control, falling into complacency and increasing suffering.

The practice of yoga and meditation are wonderful teachers in guiding us toward leaning into contrary action when it comes to discomfort, pain and suffering. These technologies remind us there is much to be learned from exploring our reactions and response to pain. We become scientists, researchers and artists in response to our own experience of the phenomenon we call “being alive”.