One way you have maybe dealt with downtime is to pick up your phone. Text, social scroll, game it…whatever your pleasure is your avoidance technique. The more you are alone, the more you may be trying to find things to do to keep you busy and avoid that sneaking feeling of discomfort setting in.
This need to “stay busy” is a byproduct of society’s over-productive lifestyles; over-consuming and over-doing everything. It is also a way of avoiding whatever discomfort is going on inside of you.
Avoiding Discomfort
There are many ways of avoiding discomfort. It could be using your phone and endless apps as a way to distract. You might watch tv or videos. Some people have even turned to less technology and started baking endlessly or playing puzzles. But what is still happening is a constant mode of distracting oneself from quiet time. Because when you are quiet, you can hear your own thoughts….and possibly feel something along with it that doesn’t feel good.
Everyone has something in their lives that is uncomfortable. A painful memory, the fallout from a breakup, an uncomfortable conversation needed to be had, family issues…the list could go on and on. The problem is when you avoid this discomfort for too long and keep shoving it aside.
Sometimes it will get shoved so far down that you can’t really uncover what is bothering you down the road. I have some clients who have pushed the pain down for 20 plus years and now they recognize that something has been affecting them but they can’t put their finger on exactly what it is. Others will push something away so much that it will eventually come out in more of an explosion which may make it more difficult to deal with.
Get to know your Discomfort
Whatever uncomfortable feeling you are having needs to rise up and be felt and healed. Ignoring your pain is ignoring a piece of yourself crying out for help.
Unfortunately, no one ever tells you that painful feelings are ok. You are taught to distract yourselves to stop crying as children. Told to get past things as quickly as possible. But you need to give attention to your pain and discomfort so that parts of you can heal and feel more whole.
Try to invite your discomfort to talk to you and discover what it’s telling you. Remember that anything you started fresh and new usually had some discomfort to it. Any place of growth is going to feel uncomfortable at first– facing a fear or uncharted territory.
Moving through discomfort results in growth. If you feel comfortable all the time you aren’t growing…you are staying still.
Slow down and practice awareness. The more you can observe yourself throughout your day the more in tune you are with thoughts and emotions. If you can check in with yourself multiple times of day and ask “how am I feeling right now?” and notice if the thoughts prior have affected your mood or your environment is the culprit.
I tell clients to write down their emotions throughout the day and any negative thought patterns that arise to keep track of how they are doing and feeling. Don’t beat yourself up for things that come up or are repeating– the fact that you are doing this work is something to be very proud of.
Sitting with the Discomfort
Once you identify what is causing your discomfort, the next time it arises try to catch it and sit with it instead of moving into another task or distraction. Sit with the feeling or thought and sit in stillness. Don’t try to process it or fix it. Try these things:
- Feel it and sense where it shows up in your body
- Can you identify the emotion?
- Can you identify the thought pattern causing the feeling?
- When is the first time you felt this way in your life?
- Sit with this feeling long enough that it moves through you or starts to dissipate
When you are done, see if you can come up with some ways to face the fear or thing making you uncomfortable and do something new to address it. Is there a way to take small steps to face this issue or fear? If you are unhappy with life right now and find things unfulfilling, is there something new you could try that might bring some sense of joy? If you don’t express your true emotions to family members, can you start small by expressing them to a friend?
In the end, discomfort is pointing you in the direction of change and it isn’t something you want to avoid. It is something to embrace and move towards so that greater change and expansion can happen in your life.
