Mindfulness  

All too often, when we are confronted with situations that bring discomfort, we do everything we can to either avoid them or to solve the issue fast enough to where we hardly notice the discomfort. For example, how often have we heard the metaphor of handling a situation with the same attitude of ripping off a band-aid. We must quickly resolve the issue so as to avoid experiencing discomfort or pain. But perhaps, by always avoiding negatively interpreted emotions, we are actually increasing the amount of pain and suffering that we will feel (Russell et al., 2019). This idea in Buddhist teachings is known as ‘dukkha’, or the feeling of dissatisfaction that comes as we are constantly reaching out or craving things that are impermanent.  

There will be discomfort in our lives. Comfort is a fleeting experience, as we will never be permanently in a state of peace and relaxation. States of comfort could be interrupted by having to work late hours at the office on a Friday night or having to fold yet another load of laundry. By avoiding or trying to “rip it off like a band-aid,” we not only increase our feelings of discomfort, but we are also missing out on wonderful opportunities to sit with our emotions and pay attention to what we are feeling and doing. By practicing mindfulness in these situations, we can lessen the pain, and learn to enjoy otherwise menial or difficult circumstances (Nila et al., 2016).  

Think of the last time you were faced with a stressor that caused you to stop and say “no thank you” and you figuratively or literally turned around and moved in the opposite direction. This could have been a huge roller coaster at an amusement park, a high dive at the local pool, or a tough conversation with a friend. All of these triggered the “get out of here” setting in our bodies and we obeyed. As we step into a stressful situation, our body experiences a surge in norepinephrine and adrenaline, which are neurotransmitters that help get our body moving, ideally away from the stressor. But as we are mindful of the feelings that come with this surge, we can not only accept the emotions and physical sensations, but we can learn to embrace them for what they are, and allow them to pass without them influencing our immediate reaction.  

Put it into practice: One way to practice this would be in what Dr. Andrew Huberman refers to as climbing walls. For this, you can put yourself in an uncomfortable situation, obviously where you are not going to be in any real physical danger, and you pay attention to what your mind says. Dr. Huberman recommends doing this with deliberate cold exposure in a cold shower or an ice bath, but this could be done with anything that is uncomfortable. In this exercise, make a goal of how many mental walls you want to climb over before you can allow yourself to stop the activity. Then, as you sit in the ice bath, climb the hill, or sit and study your math homework, pay attention to your feelings and count how many times you are able to conquer the voice telling you to stop and get out of your current situation. As you do this, you are able to build a sense of calm when other stressors pop up in your life. You are also able to be more mindful of what sensations you experience and what your mind tells you when you encounter difficulty and hardship, and therefore, be more equipped to distance those feelings from your actions and embrace uncomfortable situations.  

Watch Dr. Huberman describe this practice in this video! 

Discomfort doesn’t always come in the form of physical challenges. Mental and emotional adversity is necessary to work with in our efforts to be well-rounded and find greater joy. Here is a guided meditation directed towards facing difficult emotions. 

Listen to this TED Talk by surf photographer, Chris Burkard, as he describes how some of his most difficult experiences have resulted in him feeling a kind of joy that he wouldn’t have experienced if he had remained comfortable. 

In this video, he describes how having to put in effort made his photography and his overall experience of life more worth it. He said: 

“In life, there are no shortcuts to joy. Anything that is worth pursuing is going to require us to suffer just a little bit, and that tiny bit of suffering that I did for my photography, it added value to my work that was so much more meaningful to me than just trying to fill the pages of a magazine. See, I gave a piece of myself in these places, and what I walked away with was a sense of fulfillment that I had always been searching for.”