As part of a health study I am participating in, I went to a talk about stress the other night. I left there realizing that I was using the word "stress" to label a myriad of experiences and emotions. I also learned that it's time to reframe what stress means in my life.
The presenter discussed the difference between the important stress we feel when there's the need to act right away and the kind of stress we experience in our minds when the situation does not have to be stressful.
I've got a lot to learn about stress, but as I considered the presenter's words, I found myself thinking deeply about what I do when I feel uncomfortable. I thought more about what causes discomfort and how I deal with discomfort. I realized that I often label what is uncomfortable as stress and that I often choose uncomfortable situations for my life. That led me to wonder why I do that.
Discomfort
What causes discomfort in your life, and is that discomfort worth it? What do you do when you feel uncomfortable?
Honestly, when I feel uncomfortable, I try to comfort myself in both healthy and unhealthy ways. As I thought more about this, I thought about how I might make my life more comfortable thus reducing the need to comfort myself, and I also thought more about healthy ways to comfort myself when I am feeling uncomfortable.
Comfort?
I also thought about the fact that the idea of comfort in general has seemed selfish to me. Comfort was not a goal in my home as a child or my life in general. Comfort was a luxury while hard work, achievement, service, and in some ways fitting in were given more attention and support.
A simple example from childhood is clothes. It was more important in my world to wear clothes that were stylish or expected, than comfortable. Because of this I was used to discomfort with regard to the clothes I wore--my school uniform itched, my kneed socks always fell down, the soles of my shoes wore out quickly, and the material of my blouses and shirts made me feel clammy. My clothes, in general, were not comfortable. Now as an older woman, I've spent quite a bit of time searching for clothes that look good and are comfortable too--it's taken me this long to strive for comfort in that arena.
Another example is the schedule. I overworked from early childhood until recently. This overworking made me hungry, tired, and conflicted. As a child, the overworking had a lot to do with a busy house with a good amount of responsibility, and then as a teen I had a heavy schedule of daily school, an after-school job, then homework and some house responsibilities, and after that, throughout life, I worked a lot in order to reach the vision I had for my job and life--that vision led me to overwork, and overworking does make one uncomfortable.
Some overworking can be good as it can push you to a better quality of living, however too much overworking is not always good leading to less healthy life ways and more discomfort.
So as I think of what I may have labeled as "stress," I am now seeing as discomfort.
When do we choose discomfort, and what does that discomfort do to our lives?
Good living
Good living does include comfort, and it also includes positive responses to discomfort. It's important to get underneath the choices we make so we understand the reactions we make to those decisions. Sometimes we simply make decisions because of what was expected of us by family, friends, or society-in-general rather than what is actually good for us and those we care about.
