Staying with discomfort

A genuine life hack

It was 3 am and he caught himself doom scrolling again. There are so many things to be worried about right now. …Wars, this year’s variant of Covid, will the car make it until winter break so I can drive home? am I ever going to find a job I like, will the government go crazy? will I be alone all my life… Stop. Those. Thoughts. but how?

Walking with fears. Living with an awake heart. Finding more peaceful times.

The way we look at things makes a difference.

Our brains tend to grab ahold of fears, and we pile on more and more thoughts, which then create perseverating loops of thoughts and emotions. It’s sometimes called negativity bias, others call it monkey mind, newer slang might call it stressy or refer to all the thoughts living rent-free in their heads. Our often unhealthy fixation with fearful thoughts evolved over time to keep us alert and alive. Yet these discomforting thoughts and fears can be overwhelming. If, instead of staying on the worry-train, we begin to slow our fearful thoughts enough to observe them in a kind way, we can begin to notice what it is we are believing about our fears.

It is what we believe about our fears and the meaning we assign to them that can run amok.

When describing what it is like to sit with our fear, meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg says that it’s not always just a fear of something specific that might happen, it can also be fear that our thoughts are true. Sharon says:

“I’m afraid when I think I DO know, and it’s going to be really bad.”

Learning to assess whether our worries are an imagined future based upon fear versus foretelling a future based on facts can help us to allay some of the disastrous predictions. Meditation has helped me (specifically guided meditations from Sharon Salzberg) separate myself with just enough distance from my pain and fear to know that I am “not that”. She goes on to say:

“Emotion is a temporary state, not your total self.”

Emotion follows thought. Always.

Thoughts create emotions. Change your thoughts, and you can change your emotions. It’s the job of the brain to think. It’s our choice what we think about and how we respond to those thoughts.

“Easier said than done” is the answer I most frequently heard at this point from clients I worked with. At this impasse, I wouldn’t push back and try to restate my point, instead my response to their nay-saying (after a respectful pause) would often be something like this: ‘remember the movie you told me about last week,… and how you laughed so much your cheeks hurt when you left the theater?… Who was the actor in that film? … (client shares the name).. oh yes. I remember.. what was your favorite part of the movie? I think I’d enjoy that one too.’ (We both are chuckling now.) I again pause for a moment and ask the client how they were feeling now (versus when their fears had overshadowed everything just minutes earlier). Inevitably they would respond with a smile, and say “better”. I had just shown them in real time that thoughts do create emotion. Always.

So the challenge becomes understanding whether your fear thinking is being helpful to you or just making you feel worse. There is no sense in making yourself feel worse on purpose. It is important to think about your choices, to evaluate, and make decisions. If something is pushing fear and discomfort there are better ways to live our way through it.

“Staying with Discomfort” is what I titled this collection of my thoughts. We don’t need to push them down nor run away from them by using some sort of intoxicant. Instead we can use several techniques to relieve the “stressy”. I’ve found that if I take five or ten minutes to take a direct look at what my fears and discomfort is, that I am able to tease it apart and find solutions. Here’s one technique:

Begin by allowing a relatively small fear come to mind (tackling the major ones comes after learning a couple techniques, so just hold off on those huge fears for now). Don’t try to filter your thoughts, just observe them as if you were listening to someone else saying them.

Example: is my car going to make it until winter break? Will I have the money to buy new tires? I wonder if the tail pipe has an hole in it, it’s gotten so loud, should I buy a newer car? How can I find a good mechanic? What if my gut is right and it’s really going to quit on me?

After a minute or two, stop that train of thought and think about something entirely different, like can you feel your feet touching the floor? What did you have for breakfast this morning? Is there a predominant color that you see around you where you are? Are there ambient noises you can hear? How is your body feeling right now?

Then allow your mind to be curious again about the fear / discomfort you were considering… new car? Used car? A newer used car? how much will I have to spend?

Pause and take another rest. Has anything around you changed? How is your body feeling? Be aware of the way your thoughts drive your level of fear and your runaway emotions. Know that you can take breaks to get out of your head, and allow your body to be calmer for a time.

Another technique is to choose a specific time that you are going to focus on your worry and fear. Yes, really. Choose a period of undisturbed time that you will think about it, say for fifteen minutes after you get home. Set a timer, turn your phone off, and sit with your fears on purpose. Allowing all those worries to bubble up. Then, ding goes your timer, and you stop. You get up, do something different (have something to eat, go for a walk, take a shower etc). If (when) the fearful thoughts bubble back up to the surface, respectfully tell yourself that it is not your worry time, and you will worry about that in your next worry time. Write yourself a reminder note if you must, but set it aside to be revisited during worry time.

Does any of this change what you are fearful about? Perhaps. Will it change any outcomes? Yes, it’s possible. Because you are taking charge of that wild rambling brain and allowing yourself breaks, you will be more clear headed, your emotions will not soar into unreasonable patterns, your heart rate will remain calmer, and choices will appear sooner. If you find that you still aren’t coming to decisions and solutions then it might be time to share your concerns with a trusted friend or counselor.

It is our nature to assess our world. We are creatures who filter our thoughts thru negativity biases. Acting from a place of fear can be important if a lion just entered the room, but that’s not normally the level of danger we are fearing.

Staying with our discomfort, walking with the unknown and looking at things from a slightly different angle is a skill that can be learned. And it surely makes life quite a bit more enjoyable.