Here I was perfectly horizontally positioned and in my sleep mode and yet there was one small part of my body that was experiencing a modicum of discomfort, perhaps because the mattress or the side pillow wasn't adjusted to the maximum comfort level that it could've been. Perhaps a few of the fowl pillow feathers were out of place and creating a minor bump that my sensitive lower torso was feeling the pressure of.

Whatever.

I realized the insight at that moment of the seemingly incredible effort I go through, and all of us as well during this rote sleep time process, to create a sense of comfort so as to enable the drop off into dreamland before the subsequent waking state, usually the next morning.

It's amazing that we go to the effort that we do to create the sense of comfort that we tell ourselves that we need. And when we don't get it, say, during bedtime, we are up all night and left tired the next day as our sense of comfort was uncoming when we expected it.

But, let's extend this insight to the daytime waking hours.

How many of us wear clothes when they feel uncomfortable to us? How many of us eat food that makes us uncomfortable, or put ourselves in situations that also make us experience discomfort? We don't, at least the vast majority of us don't, right?

We do everything in our power, depending upon the situation, and the ability we have at hand at the time to remove the discomfort and the uncomfortableness from the situation and replace them with comfort and comfortableness.

And why not? Who can blame anyone for doing that? After all, it's an aspect of humanness that we want to have comfort around us and in us. We don't want to experience discomfort? Who wants to be in pain and the pain of discomfort? Nobody in their right mind.

But, I challenge you with this. I challenge that discomfort is a great teacher and one that can bring teachings to us every time of the day and week, if only we'll allow it. I wrote many articles ago about how increasing the heat when tempering steel also increases the structure of the steel and makes it stronger.

Well, analogously, increasing the discomfort in your life makes your mettle stronger, whether you believe this or not. I call it 'pleasurable pain', and this was a term I first heard from Vernon Howard.

Pleasurable pain? No, this is not the oxymoron that it appears to be. There truly is such a thing as pleasurable pain. It hurts, but it does us good. It makes us wince but also stronger to handle the next situation that inevitably rears its head of discomfort.

We all naturally want our lives to be copacetic. We all want things to be going along as smoothly as they can all the time so as to not push us out of our comfort zone and into discomfort. I don't blame you. Feeling pain is not fun. It hurts, right?

But, the pain of life is where the strong life scar is formed and created. It's stronger than everything around it. Why? I don't know. But I know that it is. The scars of life are the ones where we were pushed or forced into situations that caused us discomfort and we were spewed out the other side stronger for going through the wringer of life at that time.

Life is not about being comfortable and tiptoeing to our inevitable end. We're all going to die. And yet we do all that we can to even avoid the discomfort of thinking of that absolute unavoidable fact of living. It's not fun, but it is what will be. And it's uncomfortable, but oh so revealing when allowed to be what it is: abject discomfort.

Life is not meant to be comfortable. Life is what it is and that includes discomfort and all the so-called situations that bring that into our days.

Do you want to continue through your days doing everything you can to stave off situations of discomfort and doing all that you can to rearrange the pillows of Life around you so that you aren't falling off to sleep to virtual la-la land in discomfort? That makes for a very tiring existence.

What about just being with what is, discomfort and all? What about just allowing what already is here in your situation of discomfort to show you the part of you that does what it can to fight the situation. That's the part of you that is bringing you the discomfort, not the situation.

Again, the part of you that fights situations so that you don't feel discomfort is what is bringing you discomfort, not the situation.

Kinda a different takes on things, isn't it? It no longer allows one to blame the situation, but instead, the self. Go ahead. Make yourself responsible for the discomfort you are feeling inside, if this is due to you resisting the situation. It feels bad but creates such comfort in the long run.

Now, as a disclaimer, I'm not writing about life-threatening situations that are out of your control, or even in your control. Don't stay there and continue to get hurt or beat up. Get out. Get help. Do whatever you can to protect the body and the body of those under your care.

But, in non-life threatening situations, when you find your days full of situations that you know you are resisting because they make you uncomfortable - like speaking when you don't feel like it or doing a minor thing like taking a different route to work when the traffic is jammed - go ahead and notice the discomfort you feel about that.

It'll do you good to be with that discomfort instead of trying to make it go away so you don't have to hurt in that sense. Try it. Eventually you'll enjoy the pleasure that that discomfort brings you because along with that there will be many small lifelong-lasting insights that come with it, heretofore not seen.

My lifelong best friend attends these 10-day meditative retreats every few years. He sits in a room with a bunch of other people and meditates for 16 hours a day in absolute silence. He says that the first few days are pure torture to him and his body and he is in incredible pain associated with sitting that long.

That's not necessarily the extreme level that one has to go to go through discomfort. Discomfort is a great teacher all day long in the little things that don't go the way you think they should. In your house, at your work, in your car, with your family, in your mind. There are many situations of uncomfortableness that can teach one about one's self, and spirit.

I encourage you to stop fluffing up the pillows of Life so as to immediately remove the sense of uncomfortableness in your days. Be with those states and learn from them. It hurts, but it heals.

I'm speaking from experience: I didn't fluff the pillow or change my physical position that night of uncomfortableness. Instead, I let the situation show me what it did and what I've shared herein through this insight.

Comfort. Discomfort. Comfortable. Uncomfortable.

They're all the same when one is seeking to view and learn from the outcome inside instead of the seeming situation outside.

Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'

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