Getting Comfortable with Discomfort

"If you find you can't make it to 70 (years old) by any but an uncomfortable road, don't you go." Mark Twain

"Yuck, I don't want to touch those old dirty dishes"
"Ewwuu, that garbage stinks, I'm not taking it out"
"I don't want to join that new group. I won't know anyone"

There are many daily things we don't want to do and mostly because they take us out of our comfort zone. Getting out of bed in the morning is even uncomfortable for most of us; we're groggy, tired, and it's so warm in bed and cold on the other side of the covers.

Here are the lies and the truths about comfort in life. The main lie: a part of you thinks that you have control of the comfort in your life. The truth: you can not avoid discomfort for long. You will encounter it regardless, usually by force with heightened stress. You will also experience emotions of shame, guilt and sadness for NOT doing things to avoid discomfort. Not doing more is the largest regret of most people at the end of their life.

And here's the secret; the key. If you CHOOSE to experience discomfort and dive in to it, you will not only eliminate feelings of shame or guilt replacing them with feelings of accomplishment and contentment, you will actually choose to change your outlook on life from SURVIVING to THRIVING.

A seed on a tree does not think, "I don't want to fall from the comfort of my home. I don't want to live in the cold ground and wait and wait in the dark unknown." The seed just surrenders in to it's circle of life, leaving it's comfort, and ALLOWING life to flow from it. The seed will eventually change in to a tree/flower or food for other life. Either way, it's does not feel negative feelings in the discomfort parts of it's life. It gives up control and surrenders to LIFE. Simple life. Excepting both the discomfort and the comfort without analyzing them.

Life is uncomfortable and messy and full of change. It is also full of millions of tiny seeds of beauty just waiting for you to see them. Embrace and surrender in to life with it's comforts and discomforts instead of fighting and resenting. This will be the key to embodying your life's purpose, connecting to your heart and to your personal growth. 

You ultimately choose to THRIVE or not by choosing to SURRENDER or not.

by Carolyn Green