A Door Called Discomfort
Some days are recuperation. Some days are comfort. And some days are sitting with discomfort because that’s the name on the door behind which we stuff pain.
Maybe it’s because I am facing head-on, things that trigger me and trying to learn new responses in doing so. Maybe it’s another point on the pendulum of learning which says I’ve to remind myself to go easy, take breaks and also not feel guilty about it. Maybe it’s a dream I had last night where I was back at the source of all pain – childhood. I don’t think I was a child there exactly but I was in a place that felt exactly like childhood. The people I knew (and feared) then. And this ugly, uncomfortable life of feeling unwanted, rejected, humiliated, shamed. I woke up feeling exhausted but too scared to go back to sleep. At least now, I have an escape where once I didn’t – adulthood. So I’ve powered through most of the day in fear and fatigue.
A thing I did almost as soon as waking up was to read more about abandonment wounds. It is giving me some direction to take my self-work. The dream was raw material. I’ve built a nice life, a nice me that never has to feel that small & ashamed again. Yet, several occasions on which I’ve engaged with some of those people have been fraught with pain & drama. I really don’t like school reunions. I’ve even stopped going to Christmas eve mass at my old school church, a ritual I created for myself in my 20s to reclaim places that were sites of both pain & growth. I’ve done so raging quietly about how cruel the other people are and what it says about them, that even as adults they need to stuff me into the box of a scared, bullied victim.
All of these are true. But so is the fact that that little kid is as much me as the confident, independent adult. I think I’ve been acting like I have to choose one and that choice replaces the others; it doesn’t. All it does is stuff the other me’s into a room of pain and shuts the door of discomfort on it. This is a big revelation for me, intrepid career changer, philosophy shifter, mood mover. How many of those have been flights away after checking in the baggage behind the door of discomfort?
I started conversations, cooked, began an Instagram post I’d planned yesterday. And everything felt less. Shallow, tasteless, not good, fake. The reek of discomfort around the door is powerful. It also made me really angry at people and things. It replaced the mood I was in yesterday that was joyful & forgiving. If joy can slip from your fingers so easily, how can one relax into it? 🙁 Then I remembered my closing mood for the night, meditating on healing, on being a healed person, on attracting the healed, not festering wounds & toxic patterns. Maybe, I reason, this is part of it. Healing isn’t always pretty.
Accepting the discomfort made it easier to see that my inability to create or be cheerful isn’t permanent. This is who I am but it’s not all of who I am or even who I am every day. I realised I’m luckier than most in one thing. Writing (in specific ways that I’ve identified) always flows easily to me. I wasn’t able to create the way I wanted to. I wasn’t able to talk to trustworthy friends. I wasn’t able to express the anguish I’m sitting with & ask for reassurance or patience. But I am able to do all that when I write here. And just in being able to do that, I have all that I need. I’m very lucky. I’m grateful. Gratitude softens the sting of shame, like a gentle hand holding your own as you limp to the healers.
Discomfort is a teacher, like so many other things. It’s kinder than trauma, our fumbling attempts to stanch our bleeding in the absence of proper care. The dirty bandage still needs to be peeled off for healing to happen. And that starts with “I need help. Can you look at this with me?”
* I am not a mental health professional and am not currently guided by one. The above is intended as a journal entry based on my experience and is not meant to advise or prescribe for anybody else. Please tend to your mental health with responsibility & care.
