How the ability to sit with discomfort can unlock your team and relationship building skills? 🧘

Gdańsk, Poland. © Marcin Konkel. All rights reserved.

This skill is the most powerful element, along with curiosity, that can skyrocket your growth. 

😳 What is discomfort?

“Mental or physical uneasiness.” - Merriam-Webster dictionary. 

It’s when we experience so-called “negative emotions” after a situation or a thought. It’s worthwhile to emphasize that, although they might feel uncomfortable, there is no such thing as a negative emotion. 

All emotions are a carrier of information. That’s it.

🧘What does sitting with discomfort mean?

It’s being able to feel, and inquire with you emotions. 

Let me explain.

We all fall into the trap of being either entangled (caught) in our emotions or trying to repress and get rid of them.

Entangled-in means living emotion as if in a small boat in the sea and giving in to the current. Repressing is about trying to compensate or stop feeling them.

The two above are not efficient as they do not help us understand the intention of what is happening inside us.

👉🏼 How to sit with discomfort?

It’s about not giving in to the narrative and feeling ‘through’ the emotion instead of ‘at’. ‘Through’ is about experiencing it yet not being it. 

🤔 Example:

John got angry after Tom’s comment on the company meeting. He found it insulting.

(‘at’ approach) John can keep re-enacting this situation throughout the day and keep inciting anger in himself. Sometimes feeling angry because he is angry.

(‘through’ approach) John can feel the anger and be curious about it. He said to himself, “I’m angry now. If this anger wanted to convey an important information, what would that be?”.

We don’t always have answers when in an emotional state. Yet, instead of trying to stop feeling something, we give ourselves time to experience and check-in with curiosity, which lays the ground for taking responsibility and responding (instead of reacting).

After finding the intention of our emotions (which often concerns our values), the last step is to nourish this place with whatever we might need. That may be learning how to set better boundaries, what we value in life or other reasons.

⚙️Why it’s worthwhile to build this skill?

• making a conscious choice about how we want to react

• build better self-awareness

• thrive in difficult or conflict situations

• respect your and other’s boundaries

• build trust and positive authority

I’m curious what are your experiences and strategies for sitting with discomfort. What did it enable you to achieve thus far? Let me know in the comments.