Falling Into Mindfulness — An Autumn Oriented Rest Series
Noticing Discomfort
Welcome Back to our Autumn Falling Into Mindfulness Series
Last week we kicked off our Falling Into Mindfulness Series with an article about how to start your autumn mindful art practice. Although it’s not necessary for this article to make sense, if you didn’t catch that article and want an excuse to be creative this fall, head on over— you’re not too late to read it and jump in!
In today’s article we'll be looking at a keystone to change—discomfort. Although this isn’t everyone’s favorite talking point, it’s one of the most pivotal building blocks to understand why a regular mindfulness practice is such a useful tool. So buckle in, today, we’re entering the very human spaces.
Why Start with Discomfort?
As someone who has studied human behavior—and also as someone who is actually just a plain-ole-regular-human—I can tell you that often times our behaviors only change when we get to a point of intolerable discomfort.
Now before your brain starts to protest and we wild in the cross-hairs of if that is true or not for you…it’s important to consider at any given time we might have different capacities and different value systems around what we might consider 'tolerable' and ‘intolerable’ discomfort.1 I also want to specify that for the context of this article, ‘intolerable discomfort’ is a signal from our bodies, our communities, or our emotions that is so loud that we can no longer ignore it.
Essentially, our bodies, minds, or communities give us some kind of an ultimatum that says,
”Change this, or there will be consequences.”2
Discomfort Doesn’t Always Have To Be Extreme To Facilitate Change
Intolerable discomfort, and extreme discomfort are two different things. Intolerable discomfort can be a subtle “yuck, no thank you,” which might be plenty to facilitate change, whether we need it or not. Whereas extreme discomfort almost always necessitates change because it is producing pain and harm.
Either way—extreme or intolerable—learning about our own discomfort is a useful practice.
Although not necessarily the point of a traditional mindfulness practice, one of the many byproducts of participating in regular mindfulness practice is that we begin to notice when we are uncomfortable sooner and we can begin to understand our process more precisely3. We can start to ask ourselves questions around:
How uncomfortable am I?
Is this tolerable discomfort or intolerable discomfort?
If I have had trouble noticing discomfort in the past, have I sometimes let discomfort get extreme and cause myself or other people harm?
If I am good at tolerating discomfort, do I want to tolerate this specific discomfort?
Is there meaning and purpose behind tolerating this discomfort?
Did I assign that meaning and purpose, or did someone else tell me the meaning and purpose I should be experiencing in association with this discomfort?
Do I have the resources to change this discomfort if I no longer want to be with it?
Even if I have the resources, how much time and energy will it take to enact this change?
Is that how I’d like to spend my time and energy?
What might I need as forms of support if I do decide to engage in this discomfort for longer?
If this is discomfort that is outside of my ability to change, how can I work on having a new relationship with this discomfort to be less damaging?
Mindfulness gives us an opportunity to notice the discomfort, and then notice our reactions to these questions as they naturally arise within our process4. We strive to respond to our discomfort, rather than react to it.
Discomfort As a Spectrum
As my own mindfulness practice deepens, I have started to think about my own discomfort as a spectrum.
I know on the extreme end of my discomfort5, I have a very clear statement that arrives—
“I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”
I know when I get to this place, I’m fairly long-past-due for something to shift.
The most annoying realization is that when I get to this point, I actually know very well what situation in my life is causing the discomfort and I have a very good idea of how to remedy it. It is usually the case that I’ve tried to ignore my own discomfort or lacked a certain level of honesty with myself about how distressing my discomfort has been in comparison to the current resources I had available to manage it well.
When I start to hear the phrase “I don’t want to feel this way anymore” on repeat when I slow down even a fraction below my normal speed—I know it’s time to have a chat with my most responsible inner parts to make a change, even if other parts of me are kicking and screaming along the way.
The More Subtle Cues of Discomfort
Learning about more subtle cues of discomfort are harder, by definition.
Maybe instead of “I don’t want to feel this way anymore,” It’s quiet feeling of a “ew, yuck, I’m not sure I like the taste of that.” But then ten minutes later, serving ourselves another helping of whatever behavior because it wasn’t that bad.
When the cues of discomfort are more subtle, the consequences are often initially more subtle, too.6
When we notice any amount of discomfort, it’s not always useful to cut things out of our life cold-turkey. Sometimes instead of avoiding the discomfort, we can shift our relationship to it, or find areas of agency where we feel empowered to make a change that suits our lives better. When noticing these more subtle behaviors, it is useful to think about them more like experiments rather than things that 100% need to change or go away.
Workable Ranges of Discomfort
In a recent dharma talk by Donald Rothberg, he eloquently talked about how we can locate our “workable range of discomfort,” within our mindfulness practice.
Rothberg said an easy way to assess ourselves is by placing our own personal history of discomfort on a scale from 1 to 10. A skillful way to navigate discomfort is to work with anything up until about an intensity of a 7 or an 87. These levels of discomfort might be in a challenging—but workable—range. However, anything beyond an 8 starts to edge into territory where we might just be causing ourselves harm89, or navigating old trauma responses that might not be immediately useful for practice10.
Some of us have a tendency to push well past our workable range because we have never allowed ourselves to move slowly and mindfully enough to recognize the cues that something unpleasant is too much. We go from a place of “everything is fine, I’ve got this!” to ugly crying on the bathroom floor, frantically calling our best friend for the 10th time this month11.
Mindfulness practice allows us to start to work backwards and untangle this pattern.
Mindfulness helps us by starting earlier. Instead of waiting for a cue from the body of “I don’t want to feel this way anymore,” as a desperate outcry, mindfulness helps us get more curious when we notice our first “ew,” or “hmmmmm….”12
But…Meditating is Uncomfortable?
So this is the part where some of you may be thinking to yourself—
“Okay, I get that human behavior only shifts when it’s uncomfortable. But let me get this straight…You want me to sit down and do nothing…which is a wildly uncomfortable practice?!”
Yes, correct! That’s exactly what I’m suggesting!
We cannot become more skillful with our discomfort by deciding that we would like to never feel discomfort. We can only become more skillful with our discomfort by safely exploring our discomfort in small, digestible chunks.
Sitting and doing nothing—aka meditating—is an objectively safe form of discomfort.
Meditation helps us notice our baseline tolerance. It helps us begin to build our baseline tolerance while also being curious about the content of what might bubble up while we’re sitting there attempting to do nothing13.
Getting Started or Stepping Back In
The annoying truth about lasting change is that we need it to be extremely small for it to stick. We don’t start to get stronger by going to the gym and lifting extremely heavy every day—we start by learning how to take a walk after dinner twice a week. Mindfulness and meditation practice is no different.
We always want to start smaller than we think.
We always want to keep consistency as a priority over increasing time.
When I’m working on mindfulness with people who are stepping back in after a long period of time off, depending on their previous practice, I usually recommend people start with 10 - 20 minutes of meditation, 3 days a week and begin troubleshooting from there.
If someone has never tried to meditate before, I take a different approach—I ask people to start by brushing their teeth for 2 full minutes, while focusing on nothing else but the act of brushing their teeth. I ask them to note how many times their mind wandered. How many times they tried to multi-task with the toothbrush in their mouth. How many times they left the bathroom with a mouth full of foam. More importantly, I ask what they noticed about how they talked to themselves when these very normal human behaviors happened mid-toothbrushing.
We typically spend about two weeks (yes, two full weeks) just focusing on this mindful toothbrushing before introducing something more substantial.
Does that sound uncomfortable?
Great, that’s exactly where we should begin.
If you’d like to verbalize where you are starting your mindfulness practice this autumn, please feel free to hit reply and tell me what your plans are. Whether you’re sitting back on the cushion for 10 minutes a day, or trying out this strange toothbrush thing, I’d love to hear it.
As per usual, thank you for being here.
I’m so grateful to connect<3.
~ Dagny Rose
PS— If you’re practicing our Falling Into Mindfulness art series, don’t forget to hit reply or email dagnyrose@theartofrest.me and show me what you’ve been mindfully creating!
This sub-section of The Art of Rest, is all about—you guessed it—The Rest.
As a trained sleep scientist and mindfulness teacher & researcher, here we explore the everything related to rest. Whether we are unpacking the newest evidence-based sleep health tips, exploring day-to-day tools for bolstering and protecting rest, or diving into a world of dreams, “The Rest” is going to regularly touch into what a restful life is, and how to move towards one14.
Looking For A Personalized Way to Optimize Your Rest?
Although my books won’t be opening for about another 6 weeks, I am looking forward to giving winter guidance around sleep health & nervous system regulation around stress. I offer individualized 1:1 guidance for those who want to use rest as a way to expand their creativity to just need a tune up all the way towards those who are dealing with chronic rest related issues. Shoot me an email at dagnyrose@theartofrest.me to inquire about getting started or fill out this form to be put on the priority booking list for Fall 2024
For example, in some chapters of our lives we might value being exceptionally fit and define that as having muscle definition, fitting into a size 6 jean, and working out 6 days a week. Let’s say we’re around 20 years old when we value these things and they consume a lot of our brain space. It’s something for better or worse we end up valuing and at 20 years old, our body also has the capacity to push itself physically at the gym every single day moreso than at other periods of our lives.
To continue this example, let’s say that at this age we naturally start to go to the gym a little less and hang out with our friends a little bit more. We start to eat a bit more junk food and then all of a sudden, we’re only going to the gym around 1 day a week and our jean size starts to drift towards a 10.
At this age, it might be “intolerable disomfort” when we find ourselves gaining 5 pounds. Our mind hyper-focuses on this shift and we no longer can withstand how we’re feeling about ourselves so we stop drinking so much beer and head back to the gym 5 days a week.
Let’s take this same scenario and impose it on, oh, I don’t know, let’s say a 32 year old who has seen some shit.
While this 32 year old version of us might still value health and being fit—the definition of what that value means has now shifted to be defined as “being able to participate in any physical outdoor activity I love at any time of year, even if I need to go slow to participate in it.” and “to have functional strength to be able to not be limited to projects I’d like to do by myself including house maintenance and construction.” and “to get some amount of movement every day, prioritizing joint health and bone strength.”
The value system has changed as well as the capabilities of crushing past our body’s natural nervous system cues. Going to the gym for 2 hours a day 5 days a week isn’t impossible, but it needs some amount of slow ramping up to get there safely to avoid injury. In addition to the value system changing, the capacity for discomfort has also changed.
This same 32 year old has experienced graduate school, abusive relationships, severe panic attacks and PTSD, navigated extended periods of therapy, and created resilient and compassionate communities to support them during difficult times.
Gaining 5 pounds in the large scheme of things isn’t likely to spiral this version of the same person out, even if they decide to give up wearing their crop tops for a few winters in a row. In this scenario, perhaps intolerable discomfort happens around gaining 20 pounds, instead before the urge to start re-prioritizing their health.
Sometimes change also comes in the form of a severe external situation, too—like someone we love dying, like the dissolution of an important relationship, like the unexpected loss of a job. Although this is a slightly different topic and line of inquiry because we often did not choose to be broken up with, fired, or having a loved one die, noticing our discomfort in an extra tenderized time can help us pay extra attention to what we might benefit from or benefit from avoiding during a time of healing.
keeping in mind, always, that the map is not the territory
Much of mindfulness practice is noticing our responses and reactions to questions being presented much more than it is to answer the specific questions being asked.
the space that leaves me dealing with giant consequences if I leave it unchecked is a pretty dramatic cry from the inner parts of my own mind.
A very relevant example that many people can relate to is how often they use social media. Checking social media once or a couple of times a day for some people doesn’t even register as uncomfortable. Whereas, when we’re stressed and we find ourselves doom-scrolling for 2 hours without blinking we might start to feel that more subtle “yuck,” without it being extreme enough to hit our “I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”
This is obviously very different for everyone. It’s important to run this through your own lens and also think about what your current resources and capacities are. If you’re having a pretty easy-going chapter of your life? Great! 7-8 might feel like a fun challenge. Are you in grad school? Do you have 4 pets and 3 kids, too? Have you and your romantic partner(s) been fighting lately? 7-8 might be tolerable but it’s probably not useful or supportive to the other areas of your life that are pulling at your resources, values, and intentions. Maybe anything that falls beyond a 6 isn’t worth considering right now and can be circled back to at a later time.
There is a fairly robust body of research to show that if we are feeling too much fear or pain in our nervous systems, we are no longer in a state where learning is possible. Instead, our bodies and minds prioritize re-establishing a sense of safety before anything new can be learned. When we edge into discomfort past an 8, we are essentially alerting our nervous systems that we are not safe and all of our resources will be occupied with trying to find a sense of safety.
If this is your tendency, be gentle with yourself. We do this for all sorts of reasons. I personally have done this because I so badly wanted to do mindfulness “the right way”
and more useful in a therapists office
I’m definitely not shaming this! Social support to the rescue is IMPORTANT and HEALTHY. This article is just to begin to gently notice if this is a recurring pattern.
As an important note: this does not mean that every “ew” or “hmm….” I encounter means I change something. Quite the opposite actually. I usually engage in a much longer process of being curious but I keep it within a teachable or workable range for myself until I can respond in accordance to my current values and resources rather that just say EW and run away from it. Also, I am very, deeply human and fuck this process up all the time and sometimes end up back in the “I dont want to feel this way anymore” zone more often than I’d like. Sometimes I still react to the “ew” by getting rid of it completely, only to find out 6 months later that it would have been a really valuable way to challenge myself. None of this is bad or good or right or wrong—it’s just all more grist for the mill.
Because let’s be real—no meditation is perfect. That’s not the point. Content always bubbles up.