Think about the major problems in your life — from anxiety
to lack of regular exercise to a bad diet to procrastination and more.
Pretty much every one of these problems is caused by a fear
of discomfort.
Discomfort isn’t intense pain, but just the feeling you get
when you’re out of your comfort zone. Eating vegetables for many people, for
example, brings discomfort. So does sitting in meditation, or sitting with a
hard task in front of you, or saying No to people, or exercising. (Of course,
different people are uncomfortable with different things, but you get the
idea.)
And most people don’t like discomfort. They run from it.
It’s not fun, so why do it?
The problem is that when you run from discomfort all the
time, you are restricted to a small zone of comfort, and so you miss out on
most of life. On most of the best things in life, in fact. And you become
unhealthy, because if eating healthy food and exercising is uncomfortable, then
you go to comfort foods and not moving much. Being unhealthy, unfortunately, is
also uncomfortable, so then you seek distractions from this (and the fact that
you have debt and too much clutter, etc.) in food and entertainment and
shopping (as if spending will solve our problems!) and this in turn makes
things worse.
Amazingly, the simple act of being OK with discomfort can
solve all these problems.
This is a discovery I made a few years back, when I was
trying to change my life.
I started by trying to quit smoking, but I hated
the feeling of having an urge to smoke and not actually
smoking. It was uncomfortable to
resist that strong urge. My mind resisted, tried to make up all kinds of
rationalizations for smoking. My mind tried to run from this discomfort, tried
to seek distractions.
I learned to sit and watch the discomfort. And when I did,
incredibly, it wasn’t too bad. My world didn’t end, nor did my mind implode. I
was just uncomfortable for a bit, and then life moved on.
Then I watched this same process happen with running. I
didn’t want to run because it was too hard. My mind made up rationalizations,
etc. I found ways to avoid the running. Then I gave in to the discomfort, and
it wasn’t hard. I ran, and learned to love it.
I repeated this process for changing my diet (many times,
actually, because my diet gradually got healthier over time), for getting out
of debt and not spending so much, for beating procrastination, for meditation,
and so on.
Becoming OK with discomfort was one of the single biggest
discoveries of my newly changed life.
How to Become Good at Discomfort
If you can learn to become good at discomfort, your life
will have almost no limits. There’s no better skill to learn.
Here are some tips
Try it in small doses. Sit
for 30 seconds in discomfort. If you’re averse to vegetables, try one green
veggie. Put it in your mouth, leave it there for 30 seconds. You probably won’t
like it much, but that’s OK. You don’t have to have a mouthgasm with every
bite. I’ve learned to love veggies.
Immerse yourself in
discomfort. Are you sad, or angry, or stressed, or frustrated? Instead of
avoiding those emotions, immerse yourself in them. Dive into them, accept them,
be in them. Same with procrastination — sit with the task you’re running from,
and don’t switch to something else. Just be there with that uncomfortable
feeling. How does it feel? Are you in deep pain? Are you OK?
Seek discomfort.
Challenge yourself daily. Find uncomfortable things and do them. Introduce
yourself to strangers. Hug a friend. Confess your feelings. Confront someone
(with a smile). Say No to people. Go for a run. Try a new healthy dish.
Watch yourself run
from things. What have you been avoiding because of discomfort? What
feelings have you been rejecting? What problems do you have that stem from
discomfort? What have you allowed your mind to rationalize? Become aware of
this process, and see if you can stop avoiding things, one by one.
Learn that discomfort
is your friend. It’s not an enemy to fear. It’s actually a good thing —
when you’re uncomfortable, you are trying something new, you’re learning,
you’re expanding, you’re becoming more than you were before. Discomfort is a
sign that you’re growing.
Discomfort is the reason I decided to undergo my Year of
Living Without — I’m facing the things that make me uncomfortable (and so far,
finding that it’s not hard at all).
While others stay in their comfort zone, I explore the
unknown. And I treasure the experience.
------By Leo Babauta
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