3 easy steps for overcoming discomfort in life
/We’ve been spending lifetimes after lifetimes of triggering each other. We have been spending lifetimes and lifetimes of traumatising each other. It is cyclical, it appears to be never ending.
Where did it all start?
As I faced and dove deeper in understanding the many layers of the trauma I experienced as a child, I also have realised that the trauma I experienced was done by people who themselves had experienced trauma. And when I sense deeper into this, I can really see that there is a pattern, a line of trauma with different themes that goes back down my family line from both my father and mother’s side. I have shared before, that I can sense the love of both my parents, but somehow, they just never became aware of what was done to them and that they were perpetuating trauma that came back down the line, into their children.
The thing is, we are all doing it. Everyone on this planet is perpetuating trauma. Sometimes this shows in big events in either the life of individuals or in the world. Other times, it shows up in ways that can be really difficult to see, but it can be deeply sensed and it has the same or even worse impact of the big events. These more undefined traumatic behaviours happen both, once again in the lives of individuals but also around the world.
The big traumatic events tend to be so big that it can easily overcome the life of those who experience it.
The insidious traumatic events, or maybe every day traumatic experiences, are made feel like it is normal. When we are children we do not know any better. We are educated, mostly, to have a blind faith in the adults in our lives. So, when we experience these traumatic experiences in every day life, they have an impact on us that shows in different ways. It makes us feel not worthy, too much, not enough and a gazillion variations on that.
I believe that we are all born with a degree in knowing what pure joy is, endless curiosity and playfulness. As children, these characteristics come naturally to us. They are the foundation of what makes us human and have lead throughout millennia, to great inventions and discoveries. It continues to do so.
But… but there is a little glitch. In the society we exist now we keep feeding the cycle of trauma. The majority of the people on this planet are completely unaware of their experience and their actions. So the cycle repeats endlessly. Social media and the speed at which we get news from all over the world at the end of a click, has just increased the level of trauma we get to experience on a daily basis.
That pure joy, playfulness and curiosity have no value in this world. The trauma experience of growing up as a human being in this world makes these be put in the recesses of our souls and hearts.
We go through life going through the motions, doing what is expected of us and what we have learnt from the continuous cycle of trauma.
Deep within us, at some points in life, the heart and soul start speaking louder. We start being called to make a difference, to lead a different life. And we have no clue what that means. It just sounds fucking scary, terrifying and annoying.
The life we have been leading so far, might feel a bit empty for no reason, but at least it is something we know. It is familiar and safe. If we start asking too many questions then things start becoming scary and most of all, uncomfortable.
And it appears that human beings do not like feeling uncomfortable. We run away from it like the plague. Interesting expression, no? We prefer to have our souls and hearts callings crushed, we prefer to have our dreams crushed, we prefer anything else but the experience of discomfort.
We constantly look for quick fixes. Instant reward. We are addicted to likes and hearts in the unreal world of social media.
As soon as we experience any discomfort, we look for a pill, a TV show, food, drink… you can add the many other ways we find distraction in life. This happens every day. Every day we experience a level of discomfort and every day we look for distractions.
You know what that discomfort is? It’s all to do with remembering. Remembering is incredibly painful and uncomfortable.
We sometimes remember those snippets of joy, moments of playfulness or the sense of adventure in curiosity as children. When we remember it as adults, or even as teenagers, we are confronted on how our daily lives are the exact opposite of this. When we remember that, we feel the pain, and pain is uncomfortable. So we self medicate with distractions.
We sometimes are confronted with painful memories of trauma: from those big painful events, to the small insidious ones. They flash for a moment or sometimes for longer. We do not want to feel the pain, we do not want to be uncomfortable. We push it away straight away and head off to whatever distraction is readily available to us. The one closest.
Why are we so afraid of discomfort and pain?
It has often been imposed on us by those cycles of trauma. It continues to happen every day and in these modern days, more than ever.
So we try avoid something that keeps happening in our daily lives. We decide more often than not, that we prefer a distraction than facing it.
Somehow, somewhere, someone or some experience, made it normal for us to go through life without questioning this.
We experience pain, we avoid it, time after time.
When we are invited to look at discomfort and pain with presence and being conscious of it, we go for the distraction, or for whatever offer is available that will make the pain and discomfort disappear as quickly as possible!
I believe that the majority of offers out there in the world of spirituality, healing, coaching, etc are distractions. The constant and relentless search of us human beings of this day and age of something that will fix it as quickly as possible, as pleasantly as possible. If there needs to be any pain, may it be quick.
We constantly look to others to helps us understand ourselves. Haha. Read that again!
Only we can experience our life in our body. Every day there are an endless number of things that happen in our life that we are the only ones in the world experiencing it in that way. You could have a thousand people present in the same event and they will all have experienced in their own unique way.
No one else can come within us and experience it for us, learn it and become an expert and able to tell us exactly what is ‘wrong’ with us, and then tell us how to fix it.
Each one of us, myself included, can only guide others through our own experiences and when these have been of trauma, which they have for every single one of us, then we continue to perpetuate trauma. More so, it is only limited to that particular moment we spend connecting, when there is a myriad of things happening all the time in each of our individual lives.
We have to become the expert on ourselves. We have to learn to connect to our individual inner compasses. And ultimately to our souls and hearts.
I have some steps for you, if that helps:
Step 1: becoming aware
Step 2: noticing the opportunity to make different choices
Step 3: making different choices
But I tell you right now, that there is discomfort and pain in all of these steps. I was only joking with the title.
The alternative to this, is what you have now.
Oh, and you already got an invitation to this process this year, it came from a certain pandemic called COVID-19.
Over to you.
With Love,
Pelagia
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Photo: Artwork by me. Here is the full piece. Take a moment to fully look at it and feel the discomfort. Sense it in your body. Just allow it to be. Take a moment of stillness.
Pelagia Pais is still figuring out what to call herself and her offer to the world. She is an Intuitive, a Coach, a Healer, a Writer, an Artist and so much more of what lies in between. For now you can read more of what she experiences and shares in her blog ‘It’s not all happiness and coconuts’ (www.pelagiapais.com/blog).