COMFORTABLE IN THE UNCOMFORTABLE
Being comfortable in uncomfortable circumstances is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction… or is it?
Basketball coaching helped me understand this oxymoron and complex life paradigm. Excellent coaches create intense, competitive drills loaded with adversity to prepare their athletes to be comfortable while making their opponents uncomfortable.
Likewise, life experiences are filled with opportunities to learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. Can you remember your last vivid opportunity to be comfortable in the dentist chair with a drill buzzing in your wide open mouth? Or perhaps you can relate to my oncology appointment to be comfortable while seriously waiting results. (Personally, my blood pressure jumps during those visits.)
Here are some keys I have discovered to master being comfortable in uncomfortable circumstances:
- Recognize the mind can disguise the truth, whereas the body does not lie. It will clearly imply comfortable or uncomfortable.
- Speak to the discomfort. Bring it to the surface and embrace the discomfort. Do not deny its existence or try to run from it.
- Make a conscious choice of comfort. Claim it, own it and fight for it. Delight in the battle to be comfortable when uncomfortable.
