Sitting With Discomfort

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Imagine you’re sitting on a train. Not a plush, air-conditioned, Western European train. It’s hot and sticky. The seats are fake leather, so the layers of grime they’ve collected scrapes off on your skin. Your seat is a bench with a straight back, and there’s not enough room to recline. Maybe there will be in a few hours, you hope. The air smells faintly of burning trash, and the train is crowded. You can’t understand anybody, but they’re very curious about you. You’re sweating through your clothes a little bit, and luckily the faintest draft from the window finds its way to your seat. You’re going to be on this train for 34 hours, surviving off greasy street food and tiny Dixie cups of tea. Welcome to India.

This was my experience traveling from Chennai in the south of India to Delhi in the north. It was one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences of my entire trip. The sweat and grime all washed off easily, but the peaceful sound of the train rumbling through wheat fields still remains. This trip could have been terrible. It was physically stifling. I could have told myself ahead of time that it was going to be so bad that I would have decided to fly instead. What is memorable about a two hour flight? I’ve been on train trips in the US and Europe, but now I’ve been on a train trip. This is what trains are all about. It was beautiful. It was not comfortable.

What’s the first thing we do when we’re uncomfortable? We try to fix it. If we have enough foresight, we try to avoid it. This is why we stay in unhealthy relationships, and why we pay more to take a sterile route from A to B. What if we didn’t? What if we looked discomfort in the eye, and instead of backing away, we just smiled at it?

The comforts of American society have taught us to avoid this at all costs. Get a softer couch! Don’t let your belly ever feel hungry! Take this drug or that supplement so you feel good all the time! Is your kid annoying? Try Ritalin! Can’t write that paper? Try Adderol! Body hurts? Try Percocet! Now obviously these drugs can have positive effects, and when we need them to function, we can take advantage of the wonders of modern science. But they are also symptomatic of a wider trend in our society: we avoid pain and suffering rather than explore, confront, and sit with it.

For me, this is what yoga is all about. Yoga is not comfortable. It will never be comfortable. That’s the whole point. There is no final destination of yoga, no ultimate understanding (at least not in this lifetime). It’s about finding the edge of comfort and going a little bit beyond. That edge might not always be in the same place, but going just beyond it is always similar. The sensation of muscles stretching or tensing is the same sensation as pain. In yoga, it is controlled and done with intention. We sit with it. We explore the sensation, and learn to see it as being just that: a sensation in our minds. It is not the world ending. As long as we’re being healthy and aware, our muscles will not break (well, actually, they will, but only a little).

Why do it? Discomfort is all around us, suffering is all around us. Practices like yoga where we sit with discomfort allow us to train our minds to start to be okay with that. Meditation does the same thing. We learn to recognize that the constant fluctuations of thought in our minds are the same as sensations as physical suffering in our bodies. If we spend our lives running away from discomfort, we’re never going to find true comfort, no matter how soft our couch. If we learn to sit with it and just be, however, we’ll be comfortable everywhere, even on a sweaty train for 34 hours. Even when things don’t go exactly as we want them to.

Have you ever had your heart broken? It’s the worst thing. So, so bad. There are all sorts of things we can do to cope with that pain. We can drink, we can eat, we can sleep, we can watch sappy movies until our eyes bleed. At some point, though, if we hope to move beyond the heartbreak, we have to just sit with the pain and start to accept it. It hurts now. A lot. It won’t hurt forever. But it really hurts now. And that’s okay. It hurts because we’re emotive, caring, sensitive beings. Other people might just be the most important thing in our lives. It sucks to feel like we’ve lost that. But it’s beautiful to be reminded of the truth of our humanity. This sensation of pain in our minds is also not the world ending. It is a sensation. It has arrived, and it will pass. It’s okay to feel it. It’s good to feel it. It makes us more resilient, better equipped to face life compassionately in the future.

How can we practice sitting with discomfort? Things like yoga and meditation are great, intentional techniques for it, but honestly it can be done anywhere. Get the worst chair at the conference table? Make it work. Ameliorate the pain but sitting well and with good posture, but also listen to your body. What is it telling you? It doesn’t like something. Okay. Why? Is it going to damage you? Maybe if you sit in the chair and slouch for hours every day, but probably not if you sit here for an hour. It’s okay if it’s not the most comfortable thing right now. Maybe you got in a fight with a friend or loved one. Okay. It happens. Maybe if you can sit with the pain and examine the sensation you’ll be in a better place to work it out with him later on. Maybe you’ve decided you want to start running, but your legs are sore from trying it a couple days ago. Well, first of all, running again is the best way to get rid of the soreness. But maybe try going for a run and seeing what the pain feels like. Is it a sharp, joint pain? Okay, stop running, that’s bad. Is it a diffuse, soft muscle pain? That’s okay. That’s what legs feel like when they work. It’s what our bodies do. Each day, we can find small ways to practice being with discomfort. I’m not suggesting we all become masochists, just that we work on being okay with things being not okay. It’s a practice that gradually makes everything more okay.

Giving Up Porn

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Here’s something we never talk about. We need to. This is mostly aimed toward the men out there, but it’s important for women to know as well (and for all I know, female porn addiction could be a thing, too). Our generation is struggling with a pervasive, subtle (or not-so-subtle), and destructive porn addiction. Internet porn has slowly become ubiquitous and accepted as part of our society. So many men watch porn that researchers can’t study it because no control group (i.e. non-consumers) exists. The effects of high-speed access to porn are rarely examined by the user. We just assume that it will continue to be part of our lives.

Here’s the problem: internet porn is terrible for our minds. Here’s a fifteen-minute video that will do a better job describing the science and implications than I can. Watch it. It might be fifteen minutes that change your life. The following is my take on it, and my personal experience of giving up porn.

The basic idea is that having fast, unlimited access to “new mates,” in the form of online porn, trains our brains through dopamine response to become desensitized to real-life experiences and to continually seek novelty. Porn becomes better than sex. It is easily available all the time, so our drive to seek pleasure through meaningful action and fulfilling relationships slowly deteriorates. This is particularly devastating for young brains, as they are establishing some of these habits and sexual expectations for the first time. I feel lucky to be part of the last generation raised without cell phones and instant connectivity.

Not having a cell phone or broadband internet until college may have shielded me from the worst of what porn has to offer, but I haven’t been exempt, either. I’ve been watching porn regularly since sometime in college (and infrequently before that). Although I’ve never gotten to the point of feeling like it was taking over my life, today is probably the first time in a decade I’ve gone a month totally porn-free, aside from when traveling abroad. My conversations and experiences point to this being a fairly common usage pattern among men my age and younger (I’m 30). I know people who have gone much deeper into a porn addiction, and it can truly be just as bad as a drug addiction. But even for those who are not seeking a daily (or multiple times daily) hit, the effects are still there, and porn is making our lives not-quite-as-good as they could be. Sometimes much worse. For years, I’ve felt just slightly detached from my relationships, not particularly drawn to intimacy, and inconsistent in my energy/positivity level. I always feel bad after I watch porn, and I don’t have any positive memories of using it. Talk about a massive waste of time.

About a month ago, I watched a few TED talks (links at the end) on what porn does to the brain, stumbled across a supportive online community, and decided I would try giving up porn and masturbation. In the last month I’ve become more committed to the task, improved my life, and realized that a lot of people are way deeper into the negativity of porn than I was. I have more energy, better focus, and I’m more interested in building all my relationships, whether romantic or not. The not-masturbating part of the transition is really tough (but important, I think, for strengthening the transformation), but I don’t miss porn at all. It turns out all I needed was the accountability of some strangers online to keep me from going back to it. The group I found was on reddit, but there are plenty of others out there if you hate reddit.

I have a lot of women friends who watch porn, and on some level they tend to find it empowering and exciting. Some of them are surprised that I quit porn, as they don’t see it as all that bad. The popularity and acceptance of things like the amateur adult film festival Humpfest attest to this. I’m not saying there isn’t validity to this perspective on porn. I can see how some kinds of porn could encourage personal growth through sexual confidence and ownership, and I can imagine circumstances in which the careful and intentional use of porn could strengthen a relationship. But I believe this interaction is fundamentally different from the typical vicious cycle of use and abuse men have with high-speed internet porn. So women, please be gentle and encouraging if you have male friends who are trying to give up porn.

Men: it’s time to give up porn. Seriously. Try it. You might not think you’re addicted, but then you might also find it impossible to go a week without wandering back to a porn site when you’re feeling bored or lonely. The research is out there. Nobody is going to regulate porn or make it harder to find. The industry is booming. It’s up to each of us individually to say “no,” and to reclaim our sexual energy. Your partner will thank you, and you will thank yourself. Do it now.

Here are some resources that can help:

http://yourbrainonporn.com/

http://www.reddit.com/r/nofap

TED talks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRJ_QfP2mhU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8n_E_6Tpc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU

Setting Yourself Up for Success

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Once upon a time I worked at a fairly high-aspiration “green collar” company. We would do all sorts of goofy tests and surveys to discover what kind of leader we were, what kind of motivation we responded to best, and which Hogwarts House we would best fit into (Ravenclaw, but wishing I was Gryffindor). Although most of them didn’t stick, one lesson stayed rooted in my mind. It’s a concrete method for working to achieve a specific goal, or more generally to create the life we want to live. This may not have paid off for the company, as it helped encourage me to leave and pursue a more creative and self-aware life. But I’ve always appreciated it, and I feel that it’s worth sharing.

A bit of internet research reveals that this is also referred to as the “Six Sources of Influence.” It doesn’t seem to be a widely-discussed strategy, but it’s out there if you’d like to find out more about it. Here’s the general idea:

 

 

Type Motivation Ability
Personal Learn to enjoy what you’re doing. Practice the skills required to do it well.
Social Surround yourself with people who are excited about what you’re trying to achieve. Spend time with people who are better than you at what you want to do.
Structural Create internal systems and rewards to urge you in the right direction. Build your physical space to encourage you to work on your goals.

 

I like tables.

Personal Motivation

So easy to say, so hard to achieve. Personal Motivation can be the most elusive piece of the puzzle. It takes concerted effort to develop a love for what we’re doing. We think of inspiration as this beautiful, fleeting thing that hits us in the face and makes us write or paint or whatever for fifteen hours straight. Yeah, right. Maybe once. After the honeymoon phase of any project, love for the subject must be cultivated and nurtured. It’s a relationship. Do we want to have a one-night stand with creativity, or build a long, healthy life with it? We need to appreciate the ups, the downs, and the all-arounds.

Personal Ability

And then there’s the actual work. Practice, practice, practice. Failing over and over again. It’s how we learn, how we improve. This is the everyday, gritty, painfully slow process of chipping away at something barely conceivable. It is putting in the hours even when we forget why we started doing it in the first place, even when the motivation isn’t there. Doing it anyway.

Social Motivation

The social pieces of this process are about the community we surround ourselves with. Social Motivation is finding the people who get us psyched about our projects, either because they’re doing similar work or because they’re avid supporters. Gotta have some cheerleaders. The antithesis of social motivation is that group of people who ask, “Why are you wasting your time on that?” They’re all over the place, and sometimes so subtle in their discouragement. There’s no space for those people in our lives, period.

Social Ability

We learn from doing something over and over, but also by watching other people do it. Our brains are great at mimicking, and at turning visualization into real practice. This happens in rock climbing all the time. I’ll try a route over and over and get stuck in all sorts of different places. Then I’ll watch someone do it flawlessly, and on my next attempt, make it all the way through. Ideally we can surround ourselves with people who are farther along the path we are pursuing. We can learn from their failures as well as our own to progress twice as fast.

Structural Motivation

Structural Motivation is the most subtle aspect of this method. I basically think of it as using psychology to trick ourselves into doing the right thing. Pre-paying for a monthly gym membership is a good example, and has always been a motivator for me. I keep a tight budget, so if I know I’ve already paid for the climbing gym or yoga studio, I’m going to get myself over there as much as I can to take full advantage. Paying as I go, on the other hand, encourages me to save up those passes for the best possible moment, which ultimately means less exercise. Different things motivate different people, though, so it’s important to know yourself and to experiment. Small rewards for accomplishing steps toward a goal can be effective, as can penalties for failure to meet deadlines.

Structural Ability

Structural Ability is such an important aspect for achieving our goals, but it’s one of the easiest to slack on and postpone endlessly. The idea is to create an environment which will allow us to succeed. This includes making the tools we need easily accessible, while keeping distractions out of our work space. One way I could personally do this better right now is with my art supplies. My paints are stored in a box in my closet. It only takes about ten minutes to get them all out and set up, but that’s ten minutes worth of motivation I don’t always have. I could improve my structural ability to paint by setting aside a space that stays relatively set up. Reduce the barriers to entry, basically.

Keeping in mind these six principles, we can maximize our creativity, output, and growth. Each takes intention and work to execute, but the payoff is huge. Of course this can all happen organically, but having the system makes it more concrete, and makes it easier to find our weaknesses. We won’t just magically end up with the life we want to live. We have to build it.

Manifesting Reality

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I’ve been in Portland for just over a week now, and I’m feeling totally energized by the move. I drove down from Seattle last week with a car filled to the brim (I can just barely still fit all my belongings into one car-load), landed at my new house, met my new roommates, and have spent the week getting settled. It’s wonderful. New places to explore, people to meet, so many (SO MANY) coffee shops to try. The thing is, I know moving can be pretty stressful. There are a lot of unknowns, a feeling of being uprooted, a lot of actual work of moving things around, getting new stuff, etc, etc. So, potential pitfalls.

But these things don’t have to come true. Or better yet, even if they do come true, they don’t have to affect us in a negative way. This is the point: we create our own reality. Once we have our basic needs met (in addition to the obvious food/shelter/etc, I would add “brain chemical regulation” via exercise and  adequate vitamin D), the world is our proverbial oyster. We get what we give, reap what we sow, enter your favorite cliche here. But the thing is, it’s all true. When you smile, people smile at you. When you frown, people look away. When you give things away, people give things to you. When you trust people, people trust you. Virtuous cycles abound, the Law of Attraction.

Clearly, it isn’t always easy to be positive. Shitty things happen. Some stuff is really hard to deal with. But we can always take deep breaths, and the more we practice positivity, the more it slips into our lives when we aren’t expecting it. Our brains are hugely adaptable, and the things we practice and think about become our realities. Neurons that fire together wire together. The more we do something, the more it permeates our conscious and unconscious minds. If we’re deliberate about firing our positive-thinking neurons, that will become our norm. On the other hand, we can just as easily (maybe more easily) fire our “I’m bored” or “this sucks” neurons, which will manifest that reality. There’s a kind of sick pleasure in wallowing in negativity, but having been on both sides, I’d say we’re better off aiming for the positive. The important part is that this is our choice. We can’t control what happens to us, but we can decide how to react, or at least keep training ourselves to react more positively.

What kind of life do you want to live? What do you want your state of mind to be? You’re the only who can make it happen, and now is a great time to start.

Internal vs. Projected Reality

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As I get deeper into art, music, and writing, and start sending those things off into the world, I find that I need to hone my online persona more and more. This is totally natural and makes sense w/r/t having a business and putting on a face strangers feel comfortable interacting with. Cool. But it’s also weird. And it’s not just people who sell or promote creative work who do this. Everyone is doing it all the time. We’re constantly refining our outward-facing “personalities”, while increasingly using those as a primary form of interaction. We cultivate accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, OKCupid, LinkedIn, and all sorts of other things that I don’t even know about because I’m a major Luddite. (Although I did just replace my 2006 MacBook with a super fancy new one, and now I feel like I’m in the future.)

One of the addictive aspects of all these social media is the ability and necessity to constantly “improve” upon our personas. It used to be that the best way to express how awesome you were was to have a witty answering machine message and to wear a cool T-shirt. The T-shirt thing might still get some traction, but now we can post amazing photos online with all sorts of cool filters that make us look artistic with the click of a button. We can share all the major highlights of our lives while leaving out the monotony of the moments and the moments between moments.

And people consume these things. Right now, you’re reading a piece of writing that I’m creating while enjoying a beautiful sunny day in Seattle, drinking an inspiring cup of hot chocolate, and buzzing from a great weekend spent with old friends. It’s edited. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time. I’m not telling you about the poop I had this morning (but oh man, I could…), or how I broke my nose last week (don’t worry, it’s mostly healed), or how I got bored the other night and kind of wanted to go out and hang out with friends but was a little bit too tired. These are the moments that make up most of our lives.

Increasingly, we’re consuming exclusively the highlights of other people’s lives. But our internal reality hasn’t changed. We’re still people, and we have ups and downs and all-arounds. We get sad, we get happy, we get bored and we get inspired. The hard part is that now we’re perpetually comparing the internal reality of being human to the projected, selected, quasi-reality of being awesome all the time. We have enough friends on Facebook to make it seem like everyone is constantly going on epic backpacking trips, taking fantastic photos, traveling to far-away worlds, having beautiful weddings, and popping out adorable babies. Well, these things don’t happen that often. Most of the time we’re not missing out on anything.

Clearly we don’t want a constant news feed of the mundane. But it would probably be healthy for us to acknowledge it more often, and maybe to see a more true-to-life relative frequency between “Just had the time of my life!” and “Spent the last half-hour masturbating, it went pretty well!” We are all full of insecurities and boredom and uncertainty, and those things are great sometimes. They should be celebrated within ourselves, and they need not be compared with other people’s highlights. It is easy to fall into a trap of impossible expectation, jealousy, or just feeling kind of bummed that amazing things are happening to everyone but us. Instead of getting down, let’s use those moments as inspiration to do more and to be more true to our hearts. But most of all, let’s remember that there’s big difference between our own internal realities and the realities people project out into the world.

We’re OK.