Can You Sit With Your Uncomfortable Feelings?

Unfortunately, we live in a society that teaches us to have instant gratification, which in turn, teaches us to suppress absolutely anything that brings a feeling of uncomfortableness. There’s a whole World of distractions and suppressants that are designed to take us away from ourselves instead of further inwards. 

I know I’m right up there with one of the worst offenders of this. How could I not be with years of drug and alcohol addiction. Anytime something happened that made me feel uncomfortable I would reach for something to help me escape those feelings, and if I’m totally honest, I still do. Definitely not drugs and alcohol anymore, but I catch myself doing it in other ways. The incessed phone scrolling is a big one for me, and reaching for a quick dopamine hit from something sugary is another thing I have to watch. 

This came up for me in my ayahuasca journey, my need to escape my uncomfortable feelings, and I’ve realised this week just how bad I’ve been at integrating this insight since I’ve been back. I’ve nailed integrating so much from the journey, but still, my resistance to sit amongst the uncomfortableness of my feelings is a real struggle!

I’ve had to force myself this week to put the God damn phone down, throw the cookies in the bin and just sit with what is coming up for me. I started journalling my feelings down, but I realised even that was taking me away from really sitting there and feeling it all. So, I decided to stop with all the distractions and just sit in total silence with my hands on my heart. Geez, it was such a hard exercise. I felt myself wanting to pick up my phone, grab a cup of tea, even run to the toilet. Anything but to sit in silence with myself and my feelings. But, I pushed on and ended up sitting there for close to an hour. I had a little cry. I acknowledged what’s been coming up for me this week, and afterwards something wonderful happened – I felt better! 

It’s funny, our ego is wonderful at tricking us into believing that facing our discomfort will be disastrous, when in actual fact, the opposite is true! Sitting with our feelings is only uncomfortable in the short-term, but if we can force ourselves to override this compulsion to run, then we will see that the short-term pain really does bring about long-term freedom.

Now, this certainly isn’t an easy task. I’m sure I will continue to catch myself doing everything I can to run. However, I think the point is not about magically changing the behaviour, but rather, to bring mindfulness to it. So many of our behaviours are completely unconscious! Which is why so many are living miserable lives. The lack of awareness means our ego’s default setting is always in the driver's seat making all of the decisions for us. However, if we can train ourselves to be mindful, to observe, to be honest about our unconscious behaviour, then all of a sudden we can take the reins of our unconscious living into consciously choosing to forge a new, healthier way of being. It’s about having the fortitude to get curious. To ask questions like “What am I feeling right now?”. “Why am I wanting to run?”. “How is ignoring this going to serve me?”. It’s just a few simple questions that no one else has to hear but ourselves. A private moment of reflection. 

When I think of it like this, it really highlights to me that the very person we are most afraid of in the World is ourselves. How sad and totally counterproductive to creating the life that we truly want and deserve. We blame all of these outside influences for the unhappiness and dissatisfaction of our lives, but the truth is, we are our own worst enemy. Our self-abandonment, our fears, our refusal to look within is of our own doing. Maybe, just maybe, if we are brave enough to sit in the uncomfortableness, we can foster that inner power to change our outer reality. As they say, so within, so without!

So, in closing, I want you to ask yourself “Can I sit with myself and all of the uncomfortableness that arises?”. If your answer is no, then perhaps it’s time to get consciously curious enough to ask why…

#uncomfortable #feelings #fightflight #ego #fear #emotionalintelligence #sitandreflect