Sitting with the Discomfort

What a day…?! “Sitting with the discomfort” is not only a concept I work with my clients…it’s a state of mind that I constantly explore every day, and some days it’s right-in-my-face …or whenever in my body it hits me. I sit, I breathe through it, I let it bubble up and watch from the side.

Sometimes it’s relatively easy to see it, the discomfort, from quite a distance. Those days I feel like I am in control and victoriously examine my stance and my ability not to get hooked and dive into the hot mess of it all. There are lots of strategies I have experimented with throughout the years but some fool-proof ones are:

🌱being honest with myself

🌱examining the context of what’s happening

🌱acknowledging what could have potentially triggered me and made me see things from a twisted perspective

🌱acknowledging my vulnerabilities and limits

🌱metta or some lovingkindness meditation

🌱going deep into what I know are my values and doing a quick check where does this particular “discomfort” sit within those

🌱seeing the other person, but acknowledging that I see them only through my own perspective

🌱asking “what is this here to teach me?”

🌱acting on it

🌱moving on

Other days, of course, I am not so good with distancing myself.

Like today…

I had a home visit, an emergency drop-in, 2 last minute rescheduled sessions, last minute shifts of my schedule, and 7 people requesting bookings today.

Energy was high, boundaries pushed, enter discomfort. No. It’s Discomfort! I see how on these days the above strategies can easily slip. Like water! And I watch it with anger and say some unfriendly things at it.

But I also see that on days like this all I need is one strategy. No. It’s Strategy! And this is “Compassion”. Approach it all with self-compassion and a soft inner mother attitude of “there there love, it’s ok…this too shall pass” and it does.

As I am setting up my sweet sweet nest to welcome the most beautiful souls for tonight’s Dream Circle, this drops out of a book. It’s a copy over rice paper from my favorite Buddha Dooddles artist. I used to copy these and leave one in my son’s lunch box. It’s our invisible string…where I send him messages…I used to do this a lot more in earlier school years and although now I see he does not need these at all I sometimes drop an occasional note for him (and he surprisingly still loves them, counting the days before he is utterly embarrassed by his mum).

I see this and I am flooded by the simplicity of such reminders.

Discomfort, you are welcome! I can sit with you … and on my other side is my other bestie Self-compassion 🌸

…and here I am. Exactly where I need to be.