Empower Your Discomfort

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Turn your wounds into wisdom.

~ Oprah Winfrey

Discomfort is everywhere. Throughout our lives, discomfort can be a steady companion. How do you deal with it? How does it take over your moments? Does it become front and center? For how long? How do you get to the other side?

These are tough questions to answer amid painful times. Think of all the ways discomfort has affected you. Physical pain, emotional pain, roadblocks in your path, things breaking on you, relationship troubles, too many things on your plate, losing yourself in the caregiving of others, financial issues, negative people, negative news, traffic snarls, arguments, and confrontations. And there is also the uncomfortableness we feel about ourselves—our weight, hairstyle, looks, feelings, past, and smarts. The list of discomfort we can face at any time is endless.

We can feel all these things from time to time throughout our lives. The significant part of each discomfort is how we think, react, and respond to any of them – from the little annoyances to the powerful momentous experiences and even those pesky feelings we have about ourselves.

When you are going through a period of discomfort, a thoughtful way to approach it is to write about it. Spill all your pain, frustrations, anger, sadness, or whatever onto the page. Get it all out so you can make room for something better next!

When you are done, re-read what you wrote as though your best friend had penned those words. Think of how you would respond to your friend. What would you say to ease their suffering? Now, write your responses back to yourself. Notice how this exercise makes you feel. Does it lessen the discomfort? Does it make you feel more compassion for your friend/yourself? Are you more loving to your friend/yourself?

Once you start paying attention to the discomforts that arise, they can often be put in another frame of mind. When we can objectively view them, we can free ourselves to start thinking differently about them. To begin handling them differently and becoming kinder and gentler with ourselves and others.

You can always look at past events when a similar situation cropped up. If you’d like a different outcome, it’s up to you to change your direction. Or if it was a great outcome that you handled perfectly ... then repeat what you did!

Remember, everything has more than one side. Ponder what the other sides are when you are facing discomfort. Zoom your view outward and look at the situation with a broader lens. The distress may be smaller and more manageable than your mind initially wanted to believe.

Ask yourself a couple of questions too, when confronted with discomfort. How does this impact me? Is there something positive that I can do to minimize the distress? Is this really out of my control? If coming from another soul, is it a reflection of my behavior and thoughts or theirs?

We must understand the why of the discomfort to handle it appropriately. If we don’t, we risk blowing up, getting angry, pouting, and bringing the rest of the room down too. I’m pretty sure we genuinely do not want to have the rest of our family and friends impacted by our discomforts that have nothing to do with them. A simple explanation of what we are going thru and how it does not involve them will go a long way in gaining their support and compassion. When they don’t know what’s up, they can create their own distress because of your behavior!

Frequently, our discomfort does not directly impact us. It may arise as an annoyance of how others are behaving or speaking. We must be careful not to get dragged into someone else’s drama. Everyone thinks differently and has different opinions. We need to allow them to have their views rather than be judgmental and cause ourselves discomfort.

So how to ease our discomfort? Start with journaling, as I mentioned earlier. I am also a big proponent of sitting in silence and meditating to let our minds relax in and around the pain. Let your inner self speak to you. Ask your spirit guides to help you. Start rethinking the discomfort and come up with different views and solutions. Time also heals us. Our pain usually diminishes over time, and when we recognize that at the start, the journey through it might be a little easier.

Often, we forget the positive good things in favor of remembering the trying times. But I’m pretty sure there have been numerous occasions in our lives where we excelled at various challenging situations. We were strong, intelligent, innovative, and able to ease our discomfort. Remember those times. Write about them too. That will further cement the good outcomes in our memory banks.

When you can empower your discomfort, you further empower yourself. You become wiser, stronger, and able to understand more about yourself. Your true self shows up more often to help guide you. You begin to cherish more of your extraordinary life, and your gratefulness and love start to outweigh the discomfort.

How can you empower your discomfort?

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