4 Ways to Embrace Periods of Discomfort in Your Life and Accept the Gift of Growth
Discomfort = Transformation
Definition of uncomfortable:
Cause or feeling of slight pain or physical discomfort
Causing or feeling of unease or awkwardness
Feeling uncomfortable sucks. As stated above, you can feel as if you’re suffocating in a spiral of unease. Or stranded in a constant state of awkwardness. It’s a deafening type of awkwardness. The inescapable type, even if you’re alone. Hidden under your covers, attempting to disappear from the world and return when the unease has eased up.
Discomfort makes you want to squirm out of your skin and inhabit a different body for a while. The second the feeling arises, you’re desperate to change it. You’d give your right arm to get back to a space of comfort again. We are creatures of comfort. We crave it. We feel we survive better when we’re comfortable. Our heads and our hearts are at ease.
Since we’re so desperate to claw our way back to comfortability, we usually miss the opportunity that discomfort provides us. We gladly want to return the gift of growth it’s graced us with.
I have been so wildly uncomfortable this past year. After many attempts to hide from it and abolish it to no avail, I got curious about what would happen if I invited it in. What was it trying to teach me? What was it begging me to pay attention to? What was it needing me to change?
As I started my questioning process, my discomfort looked less like a box full of torture devices ready to wreak havoc on my nervous system. It looked more like a gift with a shitty wrapping job. But a gift nonetheless. And who doesn’t love a damn present?
In this past year, we were all faced with this highly stressful, maddening, and downright uncomfortable pandemic. Think back to how you responded to what was happening when it first uprooted your world? And then think back to your psyche’s state at month six? And month ten? And how about now?
In what way did your discomfort show up with some of the shit that was going on? What did you do to face it? Or run from it? Were you focused on exploring the new reality? Or creating more comfort for yourself to ease the constant whirlwind of insanity? How has your response gotten you to where you are today?
Many of us lept between different states of being throughout this past year. From trying to grasp what a “new normal” even is to dreaming and praying, things would go back to normal. Maybe we created a space of peace and reconnected back to ourselves. Or maybe we welcomed and embraced some changes and discomfort. And the list of our many stages of being continues…
With all the time to ponder on my hands, I found myself face first and waist-deep in discomfort. I faced my mounting credit card debt and tackled it once and for all, (currently debt-free baby!). I followed through on the difficult task of changing my friend circles. I moved across the country after living in LA for over a decade, to a city where I know two souls. And I started and completed a course to get my coaching credentials. This forced me back into a beginner’s mindset. Where I truly felt like a baby springbok trying to stand for the first time until I got my balance back.
These things were fricken’ hard to face. They were hard to go through. I had many sleepless nights, anxiety-ridden afternoon walks, and tear-filled journaling sessions.
I slowly unwrapped every gift of discomfort and I challenge you to do the same. A year and some change later, I can’t imagine my life If I would’ve discarded these poorly wrapped presents and hid them out of my sight.
What would happen if you embraced all the messy, uncomfortable crap?
What would happen if you became a momentary creature of discomfort?
Accept It’s a Gift of Growth
On the other side of embracing your discomfort, you will have transformed. Change brings transformation, which is something we all crave in life.
We don’t choose to look back a few months from now and be like, “Wow, look at how everything stayed the same. Thank God my life is exactly how it was a year ago.”
We want to see growth. Even though growth makes us uncomfortable, we crave it. It proves to us we’re making changes and showing up for ourselves. The change in your week, month, and year are the markers you remember and hold on to. They are the defining points of how you’re living your life. Embracing discomfort is the largest gift of growth you can give yourself. By facing it, you are creating your transformation.
You Go Through It
You’re never stuck in it, even if it feels like you’re suffocating at the moment.
You are going through it; you have not arrived at this point forever. You’re simply passing through on your way to the next phase of your life.
When you’re in it sometimes, it feels as if it will never end. And just like with anything else in life, we are never stuck in one moment forever.
Every moment is equally fleeting.
Be willing to go through it to arrive where you’re meant to go. Let it navigate you through transformation.
It Means You’re Doing Something Brave or Responding in a Brave Way
Discomfort can be born out of you making a brave, bold choice or decision. It can come from courageously showing up differently in your life. Or you can bravely and courageously be responding to a circumstance in your life.
You’re uncomfortable because you aren’t showing up in the same way you always have. You’re not responding to the status quo. You’re choosing to lean in and take a fresh approach. One that might bring some momentary discomfort. But you’re choosing that for long-term gain and growth.
When you feel uncomfortable, take a moment to be proud of what got you there. It means you’re choosing to not roll over and take life the same way you always have.
You’re choosing to transform. And what is born out of bravery in your life is always a lot more rewarding than what’s born out of stagnation.
Reflect On Your Past Resiliency
You’ve been here before. You’ve been in this feeling before, and you survived.
How did you respond? How did it get you where you are right now?
You’ve been wildly uncomfortable before and you’ve embraced it and conquered it.
Let yourself go back to a moment in your life where you felt you were drowning in discomfort, but you embraced it and you got through it. Think back to all that you gained from accepting it into your life and not hiding from it? You grew. You changed. You transformed. You were resilient.
Just like that time before, you will be resilient again. Your discomfort can never be something you can’t overcome. Only something you can grow from.
Takeaways
Discomfort is something to embrace, not something to hide from. Do not instantly try to create a space of comfort, choose to move through it. You’re passing through it on to your next phase of life.
It means you’re bravely choosing to accept a gift of growth. Rather than run the other way and choose how things have always been.
You’ve been there before and you’ll be here again. Embrace all that your discomfort has to teach you.
Embrace the transformation it’s offering you as a gift.
Maddie is a writer, voice-over artist, and certified life coach. Self-declared boxed wine aficionado. Visit her on www.yougotyou.co
