Why Uncomfortable is Something We Need
You must have read at least a couple of articles that talk about cold showers in the morning. There is no way I would do that — I hate cold. Or so I think. I hate the uncomfortable edginess, the fact that it requires you to move faster, think less. You just want to end it. It moves you. For some people, it gives just the right amount of stress, a nudge at the beginning of the day that takes away everything else: like a slap in the face that breaks your mental processes and grabs your full attention almost completely. A level of uncomfortable.
That same feeling of uncomfortable can be sought throughout the day in various formats, you may even go as far as making yourself depressed so you can have just as much of uncomfortable that gets you the same emotional feed. The same emotional fix, but not the same results. Tony Robbins, in one of his live seminar sessions, brought a woman from anxiety to excitement a couple of times. She was feeling it both, and having the same fix from both emotions. Only the excitement emotion pleased her better than the depression. What was most important, that woman had a realization: she was choosing to be in that state every time, and now she was aware of it. For a moment, she got angry at the fact that someone was trying to take her depression away. It was serving a purpose.
I realized I do the same thing, only I am aware of it. It’s the level of uncomfortable I need sometimes, to drive myself to change, to explode into creativity, to re-appreciate everything I take for granted. To go into meditation so I can feel the boredom and the edginess of meditation in one position. The uncomfortable before total peace and center. I use it as a goal to peace, so I can have the same emotional fix of the change in state.
This is, I think, the nature of life. Life does not need you to meditate. Life flows effortlessly. You need to meditate. Or be depressed. Or have a cold shower immediately in the morning, so you get just the right amount of grumpiness for that day, that will nudge you into grateful (I’m thinking cold showers never get old, because it so uncomfortable every time).
Uncomfortable is just what we need when we get too comfortable. It is how we recognize comfortable in the first place. Take an example of a job — it gets boring if we stay in the comfortable for too long, when we don’t have enough challenges. You may say some people like routines. How would they know it’s a routine if it wasn’t created for solving chaos?
Uncomfortable. Comfortable. It is a play. How you choose to play, establishes your game path.
I honestly feel that right now I don’t want the cold shower. :) But I do enjoy walks in the cold weather, when it is edgy and fresh and the air is so cold that moving is natural. For mornings I choose meditation and the uncomfortable feeling of sitting still, or stretching the body until you feel that uncomfortable pain (hm? :)). I know I like that more than depressed. I get this kind of warm, frenzy feeling around the heart. Then I open my eyes and I feel like everything around me is so much more real, because I am finally there to perceive. The sounds coming from the window, the water filter in the aquarium, the hard pressure of wood floor on my feet.
For the end of the year, what’s your uncomfortable dose? Is it there and is it playing your way?
