Comfortably Uncomfortable?

When I teach yoga, any style of yoga, I relate the physical practice of being or moving through asanas to life.  If you practice often, you’ve probably heard a teacher say, “your mat is a microcosm for your life.”  The idea being that how you treat your yourself as you practice is likely how you treat yourself as you move through your life.   Your approach to the physical practice likely mirrors your approach to your day to day life.

This week, I’ve had to check myself about a cue I use somewhat often when sharing yin or sustaining a pose.  Yin yoga style pose holds are typified by a sort of dull achiness.  Through practice, you learn to understand and the distinguish the difference between pain and discomfort.  Through practice, you study the moments when the mind turns discomfort into pain.  As a means of explaining the physical sensation, I would talk about a shape as comfortably uncomfortable — meaning a place you can sit without freaking out or hurting yourself.

As I’ve thought about decisions I’m making in my life lately, I don’t particularly like what this cue comes to mean in terms of a life approach.  Like most things in yin yoga, there is of course a dualist perspective.

The Pros of Comfortably Uncomfortable

It is incredibly helpful to be able to remain comfortable in uncomfortable moments.  Instead of sitting with discomfort, we often distract ourselves instead of feeling uncomfortable emotions.  How often do you check your phone, grab a snack or take a bathroom break when you don’t really need to?  We all have our anxious ticks.  Sometimes they’re not even conscious. According to Pamela Madsen on Psychology Today, “Any personal growth usually involves some kind of ability to stay with feelings of discomfort.” And it’s true that you have to learn to function within uncomfortable moments to keep moving through them.

The Cons of Comfortably Uncomfortable

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Ok, that’s a bit dramatic.  But we practice yoga so we can treat our reactions as a science experiment on a mat; study the difference between discomfort and pain, and the moments when one becomes the other.  In day-to-day life, you are constantly able to reevaluating what’s working and what isn’t.  Being comfortably uncomfortable requires impermanence, not just the awareness of constant change, as much as allowing space for changes to take place.  In a way, telling yourself you should be able to manage your emotions or numbing yourself out blocks the regular movement of life.  Complacency blocks the flow of life.   Fear can have the same result.  Stagnation.

It’s for these reasons, I’m saying no to comfortably uncomfortable.  Instead, in uncomfortable moments, I’ll ask myself these questions:

1. What is the nature of this discomfort?  (Is it physical? Logical? Emotional?)
2. What is the actual cause?  (Is it a habitual response? Is there an injustice? Are people being crazy?)
3. Am I the only one who’s noticed? (Every now and then you need a sanity check.)
4. What action, if any, can I take to alleviate the issue?

This process isn’t necessarily comfortable in the short term.  In the long term, examining discomfort in this way puts you on the path to right effort, right action, right speech.  Moving forward in this way keeps you learning, holding yourself accountable for your direction and making changes based on what actually serves your intention and deeper sense of purpose.