Acknowledging Discomfort

"Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes over night. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

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Many people's perspective on meditation is that it's a great way to slip out of the world and simply relax, but a lot of intense feelings can come up when you stop hiding behind the stimulations of everyday life.

When you go to sleep at night, it is common once you lay down to start noticing sensations that may not have come up throughout the day. Your mosquito bites are extra itchy, you're more particular about the way your clothing sits, your feet or random body parts feel some aches, and so on. These things were already there, but now you have the space to actually listen to what's occurring. This is similar to what's occurring in mindfulness meditation, where we notice what comes up without placing judgement on it. Now I'm not saying going to sleep is equivalent to meditation, but often this initial step of scanning of the body and mind can occur when we close our eyes down for the day.

The big difference between the two is the placing judgement part. We spray our bites with anti-itch, get embarrassed about that one thing we said five years ago, and roll around until we're knocked out.

In mindfulness meditation, we don't place judgment, we notice and then we keep watching.

Quick philosophy paragraph! In the Western world, our concept of ourselves is particularly based on the notion of Cartesian Dualism, in which we are a body controlled by a mind. In Samkhya philosophy, your thoughts and emotions are just as material as any other physical sensations or objects, and they are all within one category known as prakriti. In a way, one could see it as body and mind in one hand and soul (called the purusha) in the other, but it's a lot more nuanced than that. There's a lot to this, so I do encourage further research if you're interested, as many yogic principles branch from Samkhya.

Essentially, your thoughts and emotions are not your true inner self, they are information surrounding your experience - just as much as what is received through the five main senses.

With that in mind, the impermanence of thought and emotion is made clear. You won't be sad forever, you won't be happy forever. When we treat these sensations as information first, not something to feed into or react to immediately, there's an opportunity to learn from it.

Yung Pueblo recently posted a quote that relates to this: "it is not about faking calmness when you actually feel turbulent emotions, it is about accepting what has come up without adding tension to it".

Sitting with the discomfort is the most honest and informative thing we can do.

The very act of stopping and acknowledging before reacting gives us the opportunity to proceed with more purpose, and maybe break down some habitual patterns too. When we acknowledge the discomfort that's there, we're taking the time to see it for what it is, respectfully, instead of rushing to the first aid kit. This type of honesty is something you deserve to have with yourself. Ignorance is not bliss, it just makes it difficult to see where the discomfort is coming from.

Disclaimer: it is SUPER important that this designation doesn't become an excuse for inaction and complacency in our lives. As people living within an interconnected society, we have as much of a duty to the outer world as we do to our inner world. More on that later, first let's start with the acknowledgment part.

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I don't think we allow ourselves to call an emotion "fear" enough.

Often it's hidden under the table by using less vulnerable words such as stressed, angry, or nervous - which are typically byproducts of fear (the tension we feed into that Yung Pueblo mentions). See if you can acknowledge that F word, and then meet it with courage and patience. This gives you time to see what is there and then act in a purposeful, sustainable way that won't encourage burnout. First off though, we need to realize that being scared is okay. If we don't, then we attempt to cover up the feeling with rash judgements and actions that can result in harm (think about the analogy of trying not to drown by pressing against someone else, which inevitably pushes them underwater).

Let's break down some of the steps to facing our experience with honesty:

• Acknowledge that you're feeling a certain way. It's gonna be there anyways, after all. By realizing and accepting that it's here right now, you're seeing it for what it is as opposed to what else it can become at some other time.

• Sit with the sensation. See if you can feel the actual sensation of it, similar to noticing the touch of your clothing wrapped around your body. Take some time with this for a while, then try out some different words for it.

• Ask yourself why you might feel this way. Is the origin of the thought still serving you, or is it a habit you need to release? If the answer is the latter, thank the feeling for having tried to protect you in the past. Then see if you can actively send it off with your breath, perhaps imagining a balloon rising higher and higher with each exhale to represent it. Note when the feeling comes up again and keep doing this so as to let it go. If your answer to that question was the former though, and your thought is something justifiable that requires outer change, reflect on ways to take action at the root of it, not just for the sake of the resulting feelings.

• Don't expect it to go away all at once. Sitting with the feeling allows you to get used to the perpetual uncertainty that exists in life. This way you're not living in fear of it, but allowing it to exist while working on what you can (patience!). There's no need to try to force it out the door before it's told you all it can, that can lead to acting like it's not there all over again.

You might be reading this and thinking this sounds confusing, and believe me you're right. When we act like things are something they aren't, it's called illusion and illusion is a tricky way to complicate your experience. Combatting this is NOT easy. It's really really hard!!! You're literally trying to break a habit you've performed throughout your entire life - that will take a lot of undoing and a lot of catching yourself in the act. It's illusion because we rarely realize we're doing it. Because it happens in such diverse ways, it takes a while to identify it in its many broad forms. "Habit" isn't a big enough deal to be the word for it. It causes a lot of pain for ourselves and others in some pretty gruesome ways - anywhere from one-on-one to the straight up international level.

As said before, staring your discomfort in the face is not the final step. You can give yourself a pat on the back for it - because it is a big deal - but that pat on the back shouldn't be the dopamine rush that cures your problems and makes them go away. There's likely more things being swept under the rug when this happens, possibly things still harming yourself and/or others (more illusion!). Soon you'll realize there's more discomfort that you're ignoring, and that you've reverted to combatting the symptom (the feeling) not the disease (the underlying cause). You'll realize there's more harm being perpetuated at the expense of yourself and others. If this is the case, you may need to reevaluate the discomfort again. Afterward, this is where step three comes into play. Since step three has many forms, let's talk about when it requires taking action in the outside world.

If we're not taking time to address the impact we've made on others, if we're only doing that one step for ourselves and our comfort, then we're falling into the realm of spiritual bypassing.

I am not an expert on this topic and I won't try to fake that I am, so I'll direct you to an article by someone more qualified here. Credit goes to Rumya Putcha and her research blog for sending me over to that article (if you're curious about her blog Namaste Nation - Orientalism and Yoga in the 21st Century, you can find the link here).

Acknowledging our discomfort is a huge step. This mental work is super important to making the world a more conscious place, but don't forget that this is still individual, inner work. As we get to know ourselves and our patterns, we can become better humans, and better humans eventually make for a better world - but for all of these steps to play out, we must be making moves in all areas of our lives (while also advocating for others). There will always be uncertainty, things will never be tied in a neat little bow, so why are you waiting for the day that occurs to take a leap? The steps outlined above may be seen as linear, but keep in mind that the last one, in the very least, is ever present as obstacles continually come up.

It's not a checklist, but a place for constant evaluation and reevaluation.

I hate to break it to you, but life isn't one big linear checklist either. The notion of a happily-ever-after where life begins once you've got things in order is another big illusion, and I recommend you reflect on how that notion has shaped your life thus far.

Regardless of where you feel you are in understanding and enacting these concepts, let's take a moment together so we can all be on the same page.

Start with this: promise yourself that you will allow continual flow in your life. Keep learning, keep allowing change, keep acknowledging the changes within you, and see to it that you find a sustainable pace as you flow along.

Lot's to think about, I wish you all the best.

Deep breaths,

Hannah