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What do the following experiences have in common?
Procrastination, fear, resistance, dislike, facing difficulty, uncertainty, change, avoidance, confrontation, conflict.
AND
Growth, overcoming challenge, learning a new skill, new experiences, vulnerability, telling a difficult truth.
DISCOMFORT.
Life can be quite uncomfortable. So to pursue comfort turns out to be a futile life goal. So many of our life’s challenges AND opportunities bring discomfort. Imagine yourself on the brink of a significant life change like moving to a new country or taking on a new job, exciting but not necessarily comfortable. Or learning a new skill, whether a language or a craft or a technical skill, is challenging and somewhat uncomfortable. How we respond to discomfort is what defines fear from courage, resistance from growth, distress from ease.
Yes, you saw that correctly – I said EASE. But this ease doesn’t make change and uncertainty more comfortable or effortless. It is an ease born of as little additional difficulty, resistance, and friction as possible. It is an ease of making peace with reality. It is the ease of compassion and self-care, even as you go through something challenging or difficult. It is the ease of kind discipline when you guide yourself to do that thing that’s been bugging you for months. It is the ease that accompanies you as you prepare for what you can, and the same ease that lets go of overthinking and additional worry.
So when we sit in meditation, and discomfort comes up, we get an opportunity to practise ease. Noticing if it’s really so unbearable to sit for a few more minutes. Or if our thoughts and feelings must be acted on without fail. Or to see what happens to the itch if we just watch it for a little while.
