Stepping Into Discomfort

To be comfortable, according to ye ol’ dictionary, is to be free from vexation, doubt, stress, or tension. I.e. to be comfortable means to be free of anything that stretches or changes us in any way – because change means stepping into the unknown, stepping into the potential for doubt, stress, and vexation. In other words, change is uncomfortable. 

Learning is uncomfortable. Growth is uncomfortable. Healing is uncomfortable. All the good shit that makes our lives just an eensy bit better on a given day… is uncomfortable. Because things don’t get better without changing. And, generally speaking, there’s always at least one area of our lives that could get better. 

Change Isn’t Easy but Neither Is Staying Stuck

Obnoxious as it is, I kind of love the aphorism: if nothing changes, nothing changes. Because it’s true. Shit stays the same until we do something differently. And change is inherently a move away from the familiar and into the unfamiliar, the unknown, the uncomfortable.

And discomfort isn’t easy. Literally. The definition of discomfort is a feeling of mental or physical uneasiness. 

Most of us just want things to be easier. All the time, I find myself wishing that this whole business of adulting were just a little bit easier. I wish being in relationship with other humans was easier. I wish maintaining healthy boundaries around work was easier. I wish keeping my house clean was easier. I wish feeding myself healthy-ish foods was easier. I wish getting a god damn good night’s sleep was easier! 

But if I want any of those things to get even a little bit easier, I have to make changes. Change entails choosing short-term, potentially acute discomfort over the long-term, lower level discomfort. 

Not setting healthy boundaries isn’t comfortable, it’s just familiar. Not getting enough sleep or eating healthy foods or taking care of my home isn’t actually comfortable or easy, it’s just habit and routine. 

In the short term, leaving things as they are is easier than making changes, but doing so ultimately leaves us depleted and stressed. It’s a sacrifice of longer term health and well-being in favor of avoiding acute discomfort now. Except it doesn’t have to be acute. 

Making really small changes can have a huge impact over time. We just get hung up on the idea that change has to be big to be meaningful or worthwhile. We delude ourselves into thinking that in order to get in shape we have to start suddenly going to the gym for an hour three times a week – which is totally unrealistic and unmanageable if we haven’t gone in three years. We get frustrated that things aren’t already better once we’ve recognized a problem. But starting with five sit ups or two squats or a single sun salutation is more realistic, more likely to happen, and much, much easier than trying to make change happen overnight (highly recommend Atomic Habits for more on this).

The Struggle Is Real – and Inevitable 

It’s a fallacy to believe that life is supposed to be comfortable, that things are supposed to be easy, that we aren’t supposed to struggle sometimes.

I know I can get frustrated (and depressed) when things get hard. It’s easy to fall into the pit of imagining things should be different – that I shouldn’t be struggling, that I should have this shit figured out by now.

Case in point: I’m mending a broken heart right now, and it suuuuuucks. I am on the struggle bus and getting real tired of this ride. But heartbreak isn’t something one can figure out, not something one gets “good” at, and certainly not something that unfolds along my timeline. 

But. I’m working with/through it a day at a time. I’m noticing small improvements and victories. I’m giving myself the grace to recognize that this won’t change or go away overnight, that it’s just going to take time. And I’m making it just a little bit easier for myself by choosing to look for the value in the struggle and the ways it is helping me grow. 

In this particular iteration of heartbreak, I’m taking better care of myself than I have in the past. I’m letting my friends support me instead of trying to muddle through on my own. I’ve made a conscious choice to set dating aside for a while instead of trying to distract myself with endless swiping and depressing first dates. I’m noticing the grief when it arises and doing my best to be with it, to honor it, and to let it do its thing. (Which super fucking sucks, by the way. Don’t think I’m being all zen or gracious about it. “Honoring” my grief looks like bursting into tears at random moments and just riding that out instead of trying to fight it or pretend it’s not happening). 

All of which is so fucking uncomfortable. But heartbreak isn’t comfortable. Grief isn’t comfortable. Letting go isn’t comfortable. It’s also unavoidable. 

We don’t get to prance through life free of the more difficult emotions and experiences. (Not unless we’re narcissists or sociopaths who don’t care about other people). Being in relation with others means we WILL have to say goodbye sometimes, we will have to accept hard realities, we will have to let go even when everything in us is trying to hold on for dear life. 

We do get to choose how miserable we make ourselves in the process, though.

Taking the Long View

I think where most of us get tripped up is in the assumption that change (i.e. discomfort) will be bad. We buy into the fearful voice in our heads that tells us that different = bad, that letting go will mean falling down, that what comes next will probably be worse so we should just stay where we are and suck it up even though we’re honestly kind of unhappy with the status quo. That voice is what keeps us trapped in the lower-level discomfort of dissatisfaction.

More and more, I’m coming to see that in the grand scheme of things most stuff isn’t really good or bad. It’s just pleasurable or unpleasant. And I think that’s an important distinction. Good and bad assign value to things in ways that usually fail to account for the bigger picture. 

Failure = bad.

Losing a job = bad.

Break up/heartbreak = bad.

But what labeling those things as bad does is box the experiences up and, well, make them worse. 

I don’t want bad things to happen. I don’t want to have bad experiences. And ruminating on how bad things are only keeps me energetically mired in the cesspool of what I dislike about my life at any given moment.

Over the long haul, though, outside of this present moment or season of life, the things we label as “bad” are oftentimes what we need in order to open the way to something better. Or, rather than better (another value judgment), maybe I should say more amazing or more authentic or more in keeping with who and how we are meant to be. 

Failure teaches us how to show up better/differently next time. Getting fired pushes us out of a job that wasn’t actually working for us. The end of a relationship opens the door to a better one – even when we can’t possibly imagine someone better when we’re in the pain of heartbreak.

“Bad” shit teaches us important lessons. Remembering that can ease some of the tension and help us get curious. We come to know and understand ourselves better when we can look at our suffering with curiosity.

Misery and its seemingly more innocuous cousin, dissatisfaction, are a sign of something needing to shift. I believe that to be true. And I believe we have the agency to make changes in our lives – they just usually aren’t easy. And they’re definitely uncomfortable. Stepping into that discomfort is fucking hard, but it’s ultimately easier than avoiding it for months or years of our lives.