Lean In to Discomfort: Somatic Practices for Difficult Feelings

Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.

-Vincent Van Gong 

We've become masters of avoidance. With the click of a button, we can dodge discomfort and surround ourselves with pleasure. Don't like the feelings that surface during your meditation? Check your phone. Feeling sad? Swipe on some memes. Bored with your exercise routine? There are endless quick hit workouts to distract you with novelty.

In consumer culture, we feel entitled to constant comfort. Why tolerate anything less than good vibes? But when we refuse to lean into life's inevitable discomforts, we deprive ourselves of potential growth. Avoiding difficult feelings often breeds more long-term suffering.

Somatic practices take a different approach, teaching how to relate to discomfort with mindfulness and care. Instead of dodging unpleasant emotions, we turn toward them with compassionate curiosity. We lean in to unlock their hidden lessons, releasing their grip on body and mind.

Joan's Anxiety

Joan dealt with ongoing anxiety, but she constantly tried to escape it. She stayed busy to avoid feeling worried. At night, she compulsively checked social media to calm her racing thoughts. Whenever anxiety arose, Joan's impulse was to immediately distract herself or seek reassurance from others.

But suppressing the anxiety only worsened Joan's chronic tension and panic attacks. She suffered from headaches, back pain, jaw tightness, and insomnia - somatic signals of the unresolved emotional turmoil within.

After years of struggling, Joan tried a new approach on her therapist's suggestion. Instead of resisting the anxiety, she learned to gently bring mindful awareness to the sensations. She found that by softening around the clenched feeling in her chest, it would often dissolve on its own, leaving a sense of calm in its wake.

Why We Avoid

Why do we recoil so reflexively from emotional discomfort? It comes down to primal survival wiring. Our ancient threat response, critical for staying alive in the wilderness, still activates when confronted by inner turbulence.

The neocortex categorizes emotional pain as danger and immediately triggers fight-flight-freeze instincts. We hurry to exit or numb anything unpleasant. Our inner world becomes a battlefield between unwanted feelings and desperate avoidance.

This manifests in self-medication with food, drugs, shopping, porn. We reach mindlessly for our devices to distract from distress. Spiritual bypassing uses positivity to deny dark emotions. Countless tactics help us evade what we resist feeling. Suffering arises from this endless war with ourselves.

Martin's Back Pain

Martin struggled with excruciating lower back spasms that left him unable to work. Doctors simply prescribed painkillers, muscle relaxers, and rest. But when the pain returned after finishing the medications, Martin felt defeated and depressed.

Finally, a somatic therapist helped Martin adopt a different approach. Instead of desperately trying to escape the agonizing sensations, he learned to gently bring nonjudgmental awareness to them.

Once he stopped fighting the pain, Martin noticed it brought up repressed emotions of grief over a past tragedy. By softly holding space for these feelings, Martin could release the muscular tension that had bound the trauma in his body. His back gradually began to heal.

Photo credit: Cherry Laithang @Unsplash

The Costs of Avoidance

What underlies our compulsion to avoid emotional discomfort? For one, suppressed feelings don't simply dissipate - they get trapped inside us as somatic tension. Escaping pain in the moment brings only temporary relief.

Research shows avoidance coping styles correlate with higher long-term distress and illness. Suppressed emotions manifest as muscle tension, headaches, poor digestion. The body keeps the score until we address the root causes mindfully.

Dodging difficulties also prevents potential learning. Discomfort often alerts us to inner conflicts needing resolution. By leaning into discomfort, we uncover the lessons waiting in the shadowy recesses of the psyche. Avoidance breeds stagnation.

Leaning In with Care

So how do we relate to discomfort in ways that foster growth instead of suffering? Somatic approaches teach leaning into unpleasant sensations with mindful curiosity and compassion.

We notice where we feel distress as direct physical sensations - tightness, throbbing, clenching, nausea. We investigate the quality of the feelings, exploring their texture without immediately trying to escape.

It's key we don't get overwhelmed by the sensations. We lean gently into the edge of discomfort, incrementally befriending our experience with care. This allows us to create space around emotions instead of being subsumed by them.

Listening to the Messenger

As we lean into discomfort, we tune into its meaning for greater self-awareness. Physical and emotional pain always carry core messages begging to be decoded. Leaning in with mindfulness helps us extract the wisdom from the distress.

For example, anxiety's unpleasant sensations prompt us to identify our core worries and values needing attention. Anger's heat illuminates inner boundaries requiring care. Sadness rising in the chest reveals undernourished needs for companionship. The body communicates through sensation.

Somatic therapy founder Reich saw chronic muscle tension as encapsulated emotion longing for release. When we sensitively embrace discomfort, we can unravel the psyche's hidden knots and allow flow toward inner realignment.

Catharsis vs. Avoidance

It's important we don't confuse leaning into discomfort with simply venting emotions. Discharging anger through yelling may offer momentary relief but won't address roots. The key is mindfully metabolizing the feelings.

Long-lasting transformation happens when we fully accept and investigate our present experience with care and curiosity. This prevents suppressed energies from becoming toxic within the bodymind. Cathartic release works best when followed by integration, not avoidance.

The Moment Before Coping

How we relate to suffering is a moment-to-moment choice. In each instant when discomfort crops up, we decide: will we numb and ignore? Or turn toward the sensations with compassion?

By pausing before immediately coping, we create space for agency. We interrupt the reflex to fight-flight-freeze. We find the freedom to lean gently into the feelings, unmasking their hidden sources. This presence transforms our relationship to inner and outer discomfort.

Conclusion

Why is leaning into discomfort with care so potently transformative? Because it heals suffering at the root - our desperate aversion to unwanted feelings. This simple shift dissolves so much distress.

We come to trust the intrinsic gentleness of our true nature, which allows us to soften around even overwhelming emotions. We release the futile inner war. Like awakening from a nightmare, we relax into healing integration.

When such somatic wisdom matures, we unleash disguises. Our naked humanity, stripped of avoidance, surrenders into the moment. We melt into whatever feelings bubble up. This courage and compassion alchemizes inner demons into teachers on the path of embodiment.

Photo credit: Jamie Templeton @Unsplash