What If You Stopped Running From Discomfort?
I’ve been considering about how much energy we spend avoiding feeling discomfort in our bodies. Stress shows up and we want relief. Anxiety arrives and we want reassurance. Something hurts and we want a distraction. We feel pressure, grief, disappointment, stress, the 'blues', or anxious, and almost immediately our mind starts racing as it considers the nearest exit. What if, instead of always asking, How do I make this feeling go away?, we learned to sit with it long enough to discover something important: feelings move. They rise, they change, and when a difficult life situation continues, the intensity of the discomfort in the body does not stay around forever. If you’ve found yourself stuck in a cycle of avoiding uncomfortable feelings and racing toward avoidance (eating, overworking, drugs, alcohol, retail therapy) you can schedule a FREE consultation with K-Counseling. Sometimes the first step is simply recognizing the cycle. You cannot change what you don't acknowledge.
And when I say “we,” I really do mean most of us. Avoidance isn’t some unusual psychological problem that happens to other people. Human beings are incredibly good at it; in fact, we are experts. Our brain seeks pleasure and goes to great extremes to avoid pain. We stay busy. We scroll. We over eat. We shop. We clean. We work. We binge another series. We buy more stuff. We call somebody and ask them to tell us everything is going to be okay. We start another project. We procrastinate. Some people may also turn to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, or other behaviors to get temporary distance from stress, grief, pressure, anxiety, depression, or emotional pain. Those issues can become complicated in their own right, but for this conversation, the specific escape isn’t really the point. The urge to escape is. AWARENESS is the first step.
Underneath so many of these behaviors is one very human thought: I don’t want to feel this.
Of course we don’t. Pain hurts. Anxiety is uncomfortable. Grief can feel unbearable. Uncertainty makes us restless. Rejection stings. Embarrassment makes us want to disappear. Sometimes life simply feels heavy. We aren’t doing something wrong because we don’t enjoy those feelings. But we may create another problem when our entire life starts becoming organized around making sure we never have to experience them.
Our body often notices discomfort before we have even figured out what is happening. Our chest tightens. Our stomach turns. Our shoulders tense. Our heart beats faster. We feel restless, shaky, heavy, exhausted, or on edge - waiting for the proverbial hammer to fall. Then our brain does what brains do remarkably well: it attaches meaning to the feeling the body: Something is wrong.
I can’t handle this.
I need to get away..NOW.
What if this gets worse?
What if this feeling never goes away?
Before long, a physical sensation has an entire story attached to it. Sometimes the story is accurate. Sometimes it isn’t. But our nervous system isn’t waiting around for a committee meeting to determine which one it is. Your brain is constantly scanning the environment for danger; the problem is - it misinterprets a bad feeling in your body for danger to you. The body sounds an alarm, our brain attaches a story to the alarm, and then we react as though the meaning must be true. Just because you have a thought doesn't mean it's true.
What if we interrupted that sequence? Not by pretending we aren’t uncomfortable. Not by telling ourselves everything is wonderful. And not by forcing ourselves to “think positively.” What if we simply noticed what was happening? Sitting in the knowing...slowing down and not racing to a conclusion.
My chest feels tight.
I really want to cancel.
I’m reaching for my phone again.
I’m standing in front of the refrigerator, but I’m not actually hungry.
I’m about to ask someone to reassure me again.
I’m suddenly finding 12 alternative things to do instead of starting the 1 thing need to do.
And then maybe we say: "Isn't that interesting?"
Not terrible. Not dangerous. Not I have to make this stop right now.
Just: "Interesting. My heart is racing. I am going to sit with this." Think of this as asking "What is going on with my body?" Not, "Why is this happening to me?"
That is noticing. And, noticing creates a little space between what we feel and what we do next. That space may be only a few seconds at first, but it matters. It gives us an opportunity to respond instead of automatically react.
Maybe we don’t need an immediate escape route. Maybe we can sit there for 1 full minute. Take a walk. Move your body. Change your posture. Stretch. Breathe. Pray. Sit outside. Let ourselves cry. Write down what we’re actually feeling. Or simply continue doing whatever matters while allowing the uncomfortable feeling to come along with us. Remember - it won't last forever and you can be uncomfortable for short bursts of time. You are stronger than you think, friend.
This isn’t about becoming numb. It’s almost the opposite. It’s allowing ourselves to actually feel something without believing we have to obey it.
Anxiety can say, "Get out, NOW!"
Fear can say, "Don’t even try."
Embarrassment can say, "Hide quickly."
Uncertainty can scream, "Figure this out RIGHT NOW!"
And, we can notice (and believe) those messages without automatically following their instructions.
If that sounds simple when you read it but feels almost impossible when you try it, that may be worth exploring. A FREE consultation with K-Counseling can be a place to start understanding why your body reacts the way it does and why certain patterns may make you feel stuck.
Life itself gives us plenty of evidence that things move in cycles. Think about laundry. You wash every piece of clothing in the house. You dry it, fold it, put it away, and for approximately 5 glorious minutes you have conquered laundry. Then somebody changes clothes. Here we go again. The kitchen gets cleaned and gets dirty again. Summer becomes fall. Fall becomes winter. Good seasons come and go. Difficult seasons come and go. They don't last forever.
Our emotional lives have cycles, too.
A wave of anxiety rises in your body. Grief suddenly hits us on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday while we are driving to the meet a friend. We feel scared. Angry. Lonely. Afraid. The feeling can become strong and fool us into believing is must mean something.
But emotions move and cycle through. Welcome to being human.
That doesn’t mean grief instantly disappears. It doesn’t mean depression should simply be endured. It also doesn’t mean we remail in harmful situations and wait them out. It means that we don’t necessarily need to panic because an uncomfortable feeling has arrived. We can learn to experience discomfort without automatically concluding that discomfort means danger.
That’s why I love the image of buffalo reckoning with an impending storm. When severe weather moves across the plains, buffalo are known for moving toward the storm rather than simply traveling along with, or running in fear away from it. There is something incredibly powerful in that image. The buffalo isn’t standing there thinking, "What a wonderful storm." It’s still a storm. But it leans into it; literally walks through it. Maybe we could do a little more of that.
The difficult conversation we’ve been postponing? We take action toward it.
The project we haven’t started? Begin.
The anxiety telling us to cancel? Notice it before believing it.
The uncertainty we desperately want somebody else to resolve? Maybe we can tolerate not knowing for a little while.
The sadness? Maybe today we simply let ourselves be sad and stop distracting away from it.
Imagine how many everyday problems might lose some of their power if we became more willing to experience discomfort.
Procrastination would have a much harder time controlling us if we ceased stopping to feel ready before starting. Anxiety would have less authority if a racing heart didn’t automatically mean STOP . Avoidance would become MORE TOLERABLE because we are noticing it more and reacting to it less. There it is. No shame. No beating ourselves up. No running from it.
Just a noticing Then choice.
Maybe that’s what it means to truly lean into discomfort. We don’t chase pain, and we certainly don’t pretend to enjoy it. We simply stop spending so much energy trying to make sure we never experience it.
If you recognize how much of your life has become organized around avoiding bad feelings, you don’t need to wait until everything falls apart before talking with someone. You can schedule a FREE consultation with K-Counseling and get an outside perspective on what may be keeping the cycle alive in your life.
There are also times when discomfort has moved beyond something we simply observe and work through ourselves. A quick gut check can help. It may be time to talk with someone if:
- You’re regularly avoiding people, places, conversations, responsibilities, or experiences because of how they make you feel.
- Anxiety or emotional distress is affecting your sleep, relationships, work, school, or everyday life.
- You’re increasingly relying on distractions or other behaviors just to get away from difficult feelings.
- You need repeated reassurance from other people before you can feel okay.
- Procrastination or avoidance is keeping you from doing things that actually matter to you.
- Your life seems to be getting smaller because avoidance keeps getting bigger.
Sometimes what we need most is someone who isn’t emotionally attached to the outcome. Someone who isn’t our spouse, parent, employee, boss, child, or best friend. Someone who can help us separate two very different questions: What is actually happening? And what is my nervous system telling me is happening? Those aren’t always the same thing.
So maybe the next time discomfort shows up—and it will—before you run, fix, numb, cancel, scroll, eat, shop, overwork, procrastinate, or ask somebody else to make the feeling disappear, pause for a moment.
Stop and simply notice it. This is a great start, friend.
What am I feeling in my body?
What story is my brain attaching to this feeling?
Do I believe this story to be true?
And perhaps most importantly:
What would I choose to do right now if I weren’t trying so hard to avoid feeling uncomfortable?
Then be still with that thought.
Here's the thing: You don’t have to love the feeling. You don’t have to convince yourself that everything is okay. You don’t even have to feel calm.You're creating a new habit and that takes time; be patient with yourself. You’re now learning that you can feel uncomfortable without immediately running from yourself.
The wave will change. The season will change. The storm will move. And so will you.
If you feel stuck in the cycle and would like someone to help you find a different way through it, schedule a FREE consultation with K-Counseling.
The goal isn’t getting rid of the storm; it's leaning into it.
