If you think about it, we are masters in dealing with discomfort. So much of our world, the inner and the outer has been framed and platformed on having us engage and interact with things we did not choose.
Since our birth, and especially as children, most of us learned to say Yes, when we may have meant No. We learned to smile when we may have felt like frowning and we learned to nod to other's opinions even though they strayed so far from our own.
In a way, we were meticulously trained to deal with discomfort, our own. Unfortunately for us, most of us did not have the resources and support needed to process this early on. So we internalized the incongruent sensations of feeling one way and acting another until it became
normalized. You learned to skim over the prickly sensations of going against your gut reaction. To turn your gaze away from the obvious dissonance of your knowing and your ear away from the loud shriek of your anger. But we learn don't we? With time and practice, you became more interested in that voice that clamored and that feeling that could not settle and began to find the comfort in dealing with your discomfort.
The past is done, we can't undo it. Or can we? It would be great to go back in time and lift the child that we were right into the present and guide it in the right direction. Empower her with the freedom, the voice and the space to feel and sense without the constriction of limiting agendas. To measure and value his own truth as he was asked to do of that of others. Life may have been easier and possibly less uncomfortable.
But I feel that, each time we recognize the familiar uncomfortable sensations of self denial, and are reminded of how we've placated our creativity, our uniqueness, our genius, our stubbornness, we can reach in and lift that child up. Each time we practice feeling comfortable being with ourselves, listening to our body's sensations and acting on it, finding the silence within us or the voice to speak clearly, we lift that child up right into the present. When we refuse to engage with our self-judging thoughts and begin to engage with the world using the eyes of the child that you are, we are finding ways to the comfort that has always been there, even amidst the discomfort.