Getting Comfortable with Discomfort

Safely Expanding Our Comfort Zone

‍ What is comfortable?

‍‍ More and more, I notice how much I enjoy an open day with nothing much planned at all. An open day ahead fills me with quiet excitement: I can do whatever I want with this day! Such days are rare. I have some things scheduled nearly every day of the week, and I generally love everything on the schedule (maybe not so much the dental appointments). Still, a day without scheduled activities is like looking out over the ocean or up at a cloudless blue sky – spacious and full of possibilities to do or to just be. I can fill it – or not – as I feel moved. Perhaps it’s the agency in it that I enjoy.

‍ ‍‍ ‍More and more, I notice how much I enjoy quiet and stillness. The other night, I had dinner at a new restaurant in Boston with just two other people. The place was so loud, with people and music, and bustling all around. I literally had to put my ear in front of the mouth of the person sitting next to me to hear what she was saying, and even then, I missed part of it. I had to nearly shout every time I spoke, and then repeat myself. This is a dining experience I simply don’t understand: why go to a restaurant with people you want to talk with under conditions that make it so difficult to do just that? It made me laugh at the absurdity of it, and it also gave me a headache. It took half a day to recover!

‍ More and more, I notice how much I prefer being in nature and in rural or suburban surroundings over cities. Especially when driving.

‍ ‍‍ More and more, I notice how much I enjoy social events with just one or two other people. Parties and socializing in general are often engaging while happening, but exhausting afterward. When my book was published a couple of years ago, and I spoke to groups at bookstores or libraries, I was energized and loved these speaking events. But when I got home, it took a full day to recover. If travel was involved, even longer.

‍ ‍‍ ‍I am a true introvert, I know. I always have been. But it’s the increasing degree of these traits that catches my attention now. As time goes by, it seems my nervous system gets more finely tuned. Before I meditated regularly, I didn’t pay as much attention to my external or internal environment, and how my nervous system was responding. Now I am acutely aware! And greater awareness brings access to more choices; I can choose situations where I’m more likely to thrive and make connections with people. 

‍ ‍‍ ‍Being aware of our comfort zone is helpful.

‍ ‍‍ ‍My examples of what is or isn't comfortable for me are somewhat basic. In some areas, though, we can get stuck in a shrunken zone of comfort by old beliefs that are no longer true or fears we haven’t looked at in a while, and these limit our lives. We can learn to gently broaden the scope of what we are comfortable with; we practice becoming more comfortable with discomfort. This is true for both our physical and emotional selves. For example, when we experience an emotional trigger, rather than automatically lashing out or withdrawing, we can learn to look at it, tolerate what is uncomfortable, and respond more constructively. When we have pain, we can learn how to replace the automatic resistance and contraction around it with more spaciousness and ease.

‍ ‍‍ ‍Our comfort zone can change. It can expand.

‍ ‍‍ ‍Getting comfortable with discomfort doesn’t mean putting ourselves in unhealthy situations or pushing ourselves past safe limits, physically or emotionally. It means being open and willing to meet what is true, with gentleness and care toward ourselves, even when it’s unwelcome or uncomfortable.

‍ ‍‍ ‍Sometimes looking our demons in the eye does take away some of their strength. Sometimes, not resisting an unwanted experience softens its grip.

‍ ‍‍ ‍In her book, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, beloved teacher Pema Chodron says it like this:

‍ ‍‍ ‍“Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will…We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.”  

‍ ‍‍ ‍The more aware we become, the more we can watch ourselves as we go in and out of our comfort zones.

‍ ‍‍ ‍Our nervous system will tell us when it's regulated or disregulated. We can learn which conditions are safe, nurturing, and supportive for us, and which are unsafe, overwhelming, or unsupportive. And we can get to know that gray area in between. It is in this gray area, sometimes called the challenge or learning zone, that we can explore getting comfortable with discomfort in a safe and caring way. We can go to the edge of our comfort zone and test out just how safe or unsafe it is beyond it. Like putting a big toe in the water. A lot of the time, it’s actually safer than our mind tells us. In any event, unless we look, we won’t know.

‍ ‍‍ ‍The trick is to know what nurtures us and to go there, to know what depletes or even harms us and to not go there. And when something unwelcome or scary comes our way, we know we can explore it from a place of safety, learn about it, and potentially grow. Awareness is the key to opening these doors, and developing awareness is the gift of a meditation practice.

‍ ‍ ‍We can call upon our internal resources to help us tolerate discomfort when it arises.

‍ ‍‍ ‍Such resources could include: holding a larger perspective, remembering we are more than this feeling and we won’t always feel this way, recalling ways we’ve gotten through this discomfort in the past, seeing ourselves with loving eyes, talking to ourselves the way a beloved friend would, calling on our inner wisdom or a higher power, using the breath to help calm our nervous system in the moment and bring us back into regulation, dipping in and out of feeling the discomfort so it doesn’t overwhelm us … and many more.

‍ ‍‍ ‍What ways have you found to safely tolerate discomfort or to be with the unwelcome when it appears?

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