Pain And Discomfort Quotes

Sometimes a little discomfort in the beginning can save a whole lot of pain down the road.

To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But, I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude and grace.

I suffered no pain, my hunger had taken the edge off; instead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me and happy to be unseen by all. I put my legs up on the bench and leaned back, the best way to feel the true well-being of seclusion. There wasn't a cloud in my mind, nor did I feel any discomfort, and I hadn't a single unfulfilled desire or craving as far as my thought could reach. I lay with open eyes in a state of utter absence from myself and felt deliciously out of it.

As Brené Brown puts it, “I went to church thinking it would be like an epidural, that it would take the pain away . . . But church isn’t like an epidural; it’s like a midwife . . . I thought faith would say, ‘I’ll take away the pain and discomfort, but what it ended up saying was, ‘I’ll sit with you in it.

When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.

Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their own isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world.

Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding. Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life.

We'd been assured it wouldn't be painful, though she might experience 'discomfort,' a term beloved of the medical profession that seems to be a synonym for agony that isn't yours.

I saw everyone, a shifting sea of discomfort and sadness, each person carrying his own pain, each telling her own stories, no story more or less tragic or triumphant than any other.

There comes a time in some relationships when no matter how sincere the attempt to reconcile the differences or how strong the wish to recreate a part of the past once shared, the struggle becomes so painful that nothing else is felt and the world and all its beauty only add to the discomfort by providing cruel contrast.

If you want to achieve your objectives, you have to be prepared for a daily dose of pain or discomfort. At first, it's unpleasant and demotivating, but in time you come to realise that it's part of the process of feeling good, and the moment arrives when, if you don't feel pain, you have a sense that the exercises aren't having the desired effect.

Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive and expansive... The pain leaves you healthier than it found you.

No matter how sweet is smells, if you know it will give you a discomfort later, don't even attempt to taste it. Discipline yourself to stay out of sin!

this is what’s so dangerous about a society that coddles itself more and more from the inevitable discomforts of life: we lose the benefits of experiencing healthy doses of pain, a loss that disconnects us from the reality of the world around us.

I’m trying to fix my pain with certainty, as if I’m one right choice away from relief. I’m stuck in anxiety quicksand: The harder I try to climb my way out, the lower I sink. The only way to survive is to make no sudden movements, to get comfortable with discomfort, and to find peace without answers.

In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience- one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devistation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.

We experience a discomfort that may be foreign to others, but that pain opens up a world of beauty. Wouldn't you think?

A mother who undergoes a nine-month pregnancy is likely to feel that the product of all that pain and discomfort 'belongs' to her.

I'll show up and stand humble in the face of a loved one's pain. I'll admit I'm as empty-handed, dumb-struck, and out of ideas as she is. I won't try to make sense of things or require more than she can offer. I won't let my discomfort with her pain keep me from witnessing it for her. I'll never try to grab or fix her pain, because I know that for as long as it takes, her pain will also be her comfort. It will be all she has left. Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved... So, I'll just show up and sit quietly with her.

Feelings,” I said, “are like tonsils. Mostly useless, and occasionally a source of pain and discomfort.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor. Amen.

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power. What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings.

The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying- or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity- but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.

There is no such thing as change without pain, no growth without discomfort. It’s why it is impossible to become someone new without first grieving the loss of who you used to be.

Oh, the audacity of men to doubt a woman’s capacity to endure pain and discomfort.

Where it Matters Being with you today is worth all the broken hearts of yesterday. In a flash, all of the stumbling blocks of relationships gone wrong have become the stepping stones to our perfect love. We fit. I now understand the feeling I used to think was pain that came along with love was actually the discomfort from being in a place I didn’t fit. Thank you for being you… for sharing your love with me… for inspiring me to accept myself… for helping me see the unique beauty in imperfection… for showing me that love is something you do; something not just to be said, but also to be shown. I am not perfect; neither are you. I love that! Our love is perfect. And even though we may not be, our love creates a bridge that spans over our imperfections and joins us where it matters. I love you!

What I had begun to discover is that, mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the grey drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain. But it is not an immediately identifiable pain, like that of a broken limb. It may be more accurate to say that despair, owing to some evil trick played upon the sick brain by the inhabiting psyche, comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because no breeze stirs this cauldron, because there is no escape from the smothering confinement, it is natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion

Beyond extreme examples of running from pain, we’ve lost the ability to tolerate even minor forms of discomfort. We’re constantly seeking to distract ourselves from the present moment, to be entertained.

Addictions always originate in pain, whether felt openly or hidden in the unconscious. They are emotional anesthetics. Heroin and cocaine, both powerful physical painkillers, also ease psychological discomfort.

It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.

Pain I'm good with. It's discomfort I can't handle.

Growth is often the parent or the child of pain.

We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures. And nonhuman animals experience pain sensations just like we do. They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional. They too are capable of growth and adaptation. Like us, firsthand foremost, they are earthlings. And like us, they are surviving. Like us they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort. And like us they express degrees of emotion. In short like us, they are alive.

Here’s the thing. You are not responsible for other people’s feelings. They’re not incompetent children. They’re adults who can handle their own feelings. They can work through disappointment, hurt, anger, sadness, and upset. In fact, doing so will make them stronger and healthier in the long run. You cannot stop others from feeling all discomfort, or all pain. It is an impossible task, a fool’s errand.

This level of emotional integration is only possible when we decrease our pain and discomfort to a point where we view all emotion as “energy in motion,” instead of deeming some emotions as threatening and to be avoided, while we find others so seductive that we are driven uncontrollably into activity because of them.

The horror of profound depression, and the hopelessness that usually accompanies it, are hard to imagine for those who have not experienced them. Because the despair is private, it is resistant to clear and compelling description. Novelist William Styron, however, in recounting his struggle with suicidal depression, captures vividly the heavy, inescapable pain that can lead to suicide: What I had begun to discover is that, mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain. But it is not an immediately identifiable pain, like that of a broken limb. It may be more accurate to say that despair, owing to some evil trick played upon the sick brain by the inhabiting psyche, comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because no breeze stirs this cauldron, because there is no escape from this smothering confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion.

I have a high tolerance for pain, but a low tolerance for discomfort.

For many of us, our first response to vulnerability and pain of these sharp points is not to lean into the discomfort and feel our way through but rather to make it go away.

The most powerful emotions that we experience have very sharp points, like the tip of a thorn. When they prick us, they cause discomfort and even pain. Just the anticipation or fear of these feelings can trigger intolerable vulnerability in us. We know it’s coming. For many of us, our first response to vulnerability and pain of these sharp points is not to lean into the discomfort and feel our way through but rather to make it go away. We do that by numbing and taking the edge off the pain with whatever provides the quickest relief. We can anesthetize with a whole bunch of stuff, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, money, work, caretaking, gambling, staying busy, affairs, chaos, shopping, planning, perfectionism, constant change, and the Internet.

Freedom itself demands discomfort. It demands dissatisfaction. Because the freer a society becomes, the more each person will be forced to reckon and compromise with views and lifestyles and ideas that conflict with their own. The lower our tolerance for pain, the more we indulge in fake freedoms, the less we will be able to uphold the virtues necessary to allow a free, democratic society to function.

Pain is surprising; we cannot understand why we have been abandoned in love... why we are unable to sleep at night.... Identifying reasons for such discomforts does not spectacularly absolve us of pain, but it may form the principal basis of a recovery. While assuring us that we are not uniquely cursed, understanding grants us a sense of the boundaries to, and bitter logic behind, our suffering. 'Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart.' - Proust

You know what? This isn't about your feelings. A human life, with all its joys and all its pains, adding up over the course of decades, is worth far more than your brain's feelings of comfort or discomfort with a plan. Does computing the expected utility feel too cold-blooded for your taste? Well, that feeling isn't even a feather in the scales, when a life is at stake. Just shut up and multiply.

Pain is a warning,” said Anaander Mianaai. “What would happen if you removed all discomfort from your life? No,” Mianaai continued, ignoring Seivarden’s obvious distress at her words, “I value that moral indignation. I encourage it.

When we feel dread, when we feel discomfort of any kind, it can connect us at the heart with all the other people feeling dread and discomfort. We can pause and touch into dread. We can touch bitterness of rejection and the rawness of being slighted. Whether we are at home or in a public spot or caught in a traffic jam or walking into a movie, we can stop and look at the other people there and realize that in pain and in joy they are just like me. Just like me they don’t want to feel physical pain or insecurity or rejection. Just like me they want to feel respected and physically comfortable.

Might the safest space be this: Safe from having to wear your armor. Safe from having to laugh off your pain. Safe to laugh at your pain, at yourself. Safe to know your truth... Safe to feel... Safe to disagree... Not safe from struggling with the conundrums of life, Safe to struggle with them To sit in the dis-comfort of no-extremes... Safe to spin through all the chaos... And feel the shoulder of another traveler... And know you are not alone. You are not alone.

Might the safest space be this: Safe from having to wear your armor. Safe from having to laugh off your pain. Safe to laugh at your pain, at yourself. Safe to know your truth... Safe to feel... Safe to disagree... Not safe from struggling with the conundrums of life Safe to struggle with them... To sit in the dis-comfort of no-extremes... Safe to spin through all the chaos... And feel the shoulder of another traveler... And know you are not alone. You are not alone.

The runner knows something the rest of us are busy forgetting: to get stronger, you have to go on until you are uncomfortable, and then go on a while longer. It is in that place where discomfort happens but activity is still possible that growth and development happen.

If a child falls and scrapes his knee, he does not say, “At least I didn’t break my leg.” He cries because pain causes discomfort regardless of its intensity. All pains are equal and valid, and deserving of attention.

Patience is the specific antidote to anger and hatred. It is an attitude of accepting both the harm caused by others and the pains and discomforts found in life instead of angrily retaliating against them. Only in the calm afforded by patient acceptance is one able to clearly discern the nature of the situation and proceed to deal with it realistically. Once the mind becomes distorted and disturbed with anger, any possibility of objectivity is lost. One consequently embarks upon a course of action grounded in misconception that inevitably leads to a heightening of the initial conflict rather than its resolution.

Open yourself to discomfort. Meet it with mercy, not fear. Recognize that when our pain most calls for our embrace, we are often the least present. Soften, enter, and explore, and continue softening to make room for your life.

Might the safest space be this: Safe from having to wear your armor. Safe from having to laugh off your pain. Safe to laugh at your pain, at yourself. Safe to know your truth... Safe to feel... Safe to disagree... Not safe from struggling with the conundrums of life, safe to struggle with them... To sit in the dis-comfort of no-extremes... Safe to spin through all the chaos... And feel the shoulder of another traveler... And know you are not alone. You are not alone.

Now I can lean into joy, even when it makes me feel tender and vulnerable. In fact, I expect tender and vulnerable. Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees—these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy. In fact, addiction research shows us that an intensely positive experience is as likely to cause relapse as an intensely painful experience.

For it is discomfort's own essence to be near a man and to feel him in torture of misery, to feel with him the very pain of the misery, and yet to be unable to help.

Sharing pain with someone isn't something to take lightly. Every month, Chapel sent me chocolates for my PMS cravings, and I took Midol to lessen his discomfort.

I’ll ask again, are the bindings okay? I don’t want you in pain, just discomfort.” “Then you did good, Sir, as I’m uncomfortable as shit, but nothing hurts.

...of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness...the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. The ordinary bloke suffers that discomfort every day, every time he makes a choice between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up when he's tired or spending the day in his warm bed and losing his job. No matter which he does he always chooses what seems to hurt least or pleasures most. The average chump spends his life harried by these small decisions.

The country was lumbering towards election day. Strike turned in early on Sunday and watched the day's gaffes, counterclaims and promises being tabulated on his portable TV. There was an air of joylessness in every news report he watched. The national debt was so huge that it was diffcult to comprehend. Cuts were coming, whoever won; deep, painful cuts; and sometimes, with their weasel words, the party leaders reminded Strike of the surgeons who had told him cautiously that he might experience a degree of discomfort; they who would never personally feel the pain that was about to be inflicted.

In hospital they ask you to rate your discomfort on a scale of ten. I guess it’s the best they can come up with, but it fails to capture the nature of the beast. Pain can stay the same while you change around it. And, like a thumb of constant size, what it blocks out depends on how close it gets to you. At arm’s length a thumb obscures a small fragment of the day. Held close enough to your eye it can blind you to everything that matters, relegating the world to a periphery.

There is power in the pressure of dissatisfaction, in the tension of temporary discomfort. This is the kind of pain you want in your life, the kind of pain that you immediately transform into positive new actions.

Sattvic people enjoy food that is mild, tasty, substantial, agreeable, and nourishing, food that promotes health, strength, cheerfulness, and longevity. 9 Rajasic people like food that is salty or bitter, hot, sour, or spicy – food that promotes pain, discomfort, and disease. 10 Tamasic people like overcooked, stale, leftover, and impure food, food that has lost its taste and nutritional value.

I had no pain--my hunger had taken the edge off it. In its stead I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me, and glad not to be noticed by any one. I put my feet up on the seat and leant back. Thus I could best appreciate the well-being of perfect isolation. There was not a cloud on my mind, not a feeling of discomfort, and so far as my thought reached, I had not a whim, not a desire unsatisfied. I lay with open eyes, in a state of utter absence of mind. I felt myself charmed away.

Operating theaters are not nearly as popular as dramatic theaters, musical theaters, and movie theaters, and it is easy to see why. A dramatic theater is a large, dark room in which actors perform a play, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the dialog and looking at the costumes. A musical theater is a large, dark room in which musicians preform a symphony, and if you are in the audience you can enjoy yourself by listening to the melodies and watching the conductor wave his little stick around. And a movie theater is a large, dark room in which a projectionist shows a film, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by eating popcorn and gossiping about movie stars. But an operating theater is a large, dark room in which doctors preform medical procedures, and if you are in the audience, the best thing to do is to leave at once because there is never anything on display in an operating theater but pain, suffering and discomfort, and for this reason most operating theaters have been closed down or have been turned into restaurants.

He awoke each morning with familiar shapes at the edges of his vision, could feel memories nearby, but by the time breakfast came, they were already fading. By dinner, they were lost. It left Troy with a sadness, a cold sensation, and a feeling like a hollow stomach--different from hunger--like rainy days as a child when he didn't know how to fill his time. It was the pain of a chronic boredom mixed with the discomfort of time wasted.

Just like joy and pain coexist, so can discomfort and humor. Which is why you gotta buckle up buttercup, because I can go from comedy to tragedy in three seconds flat. And that’s not damaged or not normal. I hope culturally we can continue to normalize the idea that being a survivor is so much more common than anyone realizes and we all deserve to be heard, but more importantly are deserving of a recovery full of love, laughter, and light.

But for us the tragedy was but just beginning; as in the case of other wounds the pain was drugged at the moment, and made itself felt afterwards when we began to move. There was pain in all our circumstances, or a dull discomfort, a kind of restlessness and aimlessness which was even worse. Misery of this kind tends to concentrate itself upon an object, if it can find one, and there was a figure, unfortunately, who would serve our purpose very well.

It's so hard to watch the person you love be in pain. It's a natural impulse to want to fix it, and not being able to is uncomfortable. Remaining in that state of discomfort over time is even harder. Being in a relationship with someone in chronic pain is like a chronic pain condition in and of itself.

What I've learned through my work and what I heard that night in Newtown makes one thing clear: Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world.

In particular, the virtues and ambitions called forth by war are unlikely to find expression in liberal democracies. There will be plenty of metaphorical wars—corporate lawyers specializing in hostile takeovers who will think of themselves as sharks or gunslingers, and bond traders who imagine, as in Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, that they are “masters of the universe.” (They will believe this, however, only in bull markets.) But as they sink into the soft leather of their BMWs, they will know somewhere in the back of their minds that there have been real gunslingers and masters in the world, who would feel contempt for the petty virtues required to become rich or famous in modern America. How long megalothymia will be satisfied with metaphorical wars and symbolic victories is an open question. One suspects that some people will not be satisfied until they prove themselves by that very act that constituted their humanness at the beginning of history: they will want to risk their lives in a violent battle, and thereby prove beyond any shadow of a doubt to themselves and to their fellows that they are free. They will deliberately seek discomfort and sacrifice, because the pain will be the only way they have of proving definitively that they can think well of themselves, that they remain human beings.

For instance, since none of us lives until age 240, people tend not to think that failing to reach that age makes one’s life go less well. However, most people regard it as tragic when somebody dies at forty (at least if that person’s quality of life was comparatively good). But why should a death at ninety not be tragic if a death at forty is? The only answer can be that our judgement is constrained by our circumstances. We do not take that which is beyond our reach as something that would be a crucial good. But why must it be that the good life is within our reach? Perhaps the good life is something that is impossible to attain. It certainly sounds as though a life that is devoid of any discomfort, pain, suffering, distress, stress, anxiety, frustration, and boredom, that lasts for much longer than ninety years, and that is filled with much more of what is good would be better than the sort of life the luckiest humans have. Why then do we not judge our lives in terms of that (impossible) standard?

Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say that we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.

Real consciousness is touch. Thought is getting out of touch. The crux of the whole problem lies here, in the duality of man's consciousness. Touch, the being in touch, is the basis of all consciousness, and it is the basis of enduring happiness. Thought is a secondary form of consciousness, Mind is a secondary form of existence, a getting out of touch, a standing clear, in order to come to a better adjustment in touch. Man, poor man, has to learn to function in these two ways of consciousness. When a man is in touch, he is non-mental, his mind is quiescent, his bodily centres are active. When a man's mind is active in real mental activity, the bodily centres are quiescent, switched off, the man is out of touch. The animals remain always in touch. And man, poor modern man, with his worship of his own god, which is his own mind glorified, is permanently out of touch. To be always irrevocably in touch is to feel sometimes imprisoned. But to be permanently out of touch is at last excruciatingly painful, it is a state of being nothing, and being nowhere, and at the same time being conscious and capable of extreme discomfort and ennui.

You don’t say, “I’m sorry,”’ he says. ‘Getting injections, and experiencing pain, is part of life. There’s no reason to apologize for that.’ He seems to be channelling Rousseau, who said, ‘If by too much care you spare them every kind of discomfort, you are preparing great miseries for them.’ (I’m not sure what Rousseau thought about suppositories.)

This is not to say that immigration and economic pain are irrelevant to the current crisis: clearly they are genuine sources of anger, distress, discomfort, and division. But as a complete explanation for political change—as an explanation for the emergence of whole new classes of political actors—they are insufficient. Something else is going on right now, something that is affecting very different democracies, with very different economics and very different demographics, all over the world.

An interesting way to practice dying is by opening to illness. Each time you get a cold or the flu use it as an opportunity to soften around the unpleasant and investigate how resistance turns pain into suffering, the unpleasant into the unbearable. Notice how discomfort attracts grief. Watch the shadows gather in the aching body. Hear them mutter in complaint and self-pity.

So when joy arises at the level of your mind and not just your senses, you can maintain a deep sense of satisfaction for a much longer period of time—even for twenty-four hours. “So I always say to people, you have to pay more attention to the mental level of joy and happiness. Not just physical pleasure, but satisfaction at the level of mind. This is true joyfulness. When you are joyful and happy at the mental level, physical pain doesn’t matter very much. But if there is no joy or happiness at the mental level, too much worrying, too much fear, then even physical comforts and pleasure will not soothe your mental discomfort.” “Many

Du Bois Reymond spoke of “a general feeling of disorder” at the very start of his attacks, and other patients speak, simply, of feeling “unsettled.” In this unsettled state one may feel hot or cold, or both (see, for example, Case 9); bloated and tight, or loose and queasy; a peculiar tension, or languor, or both; there are head pains, or other pains, sundry strains and discomforts, which come and go. Everything comes and goes, nothing is settled, and if one could take a total thermogram, or scan, or inner photograph of the body, one would see vascular beds opening and closing, peristalsis accelerating or stopping, viscera squirming or tightening in spasms, secretions suddenly increasing or lessening—as if the nervous system itself was in a state of indecision.

Suppose you found yourself two miles from home without a ride. Although you could get home three times faster if you ran, most people would settle for walking. Running wouldn’t be worth the sweat and discomfort, and walking will get you there at a reasonable and painless rate. Each step brings you a little closer, and before you know it, you are halfway home and still moving forward. It’s the same with mindlessly losing weight. It need not be a sweaty, painful sprint. It can be a slow, steady walk that begins with removing unwanted eating cues and rearranging your home, office, and eating habits so they work for you and your family rather than against you. These comfortable steps will add up—one or two pounds a month. Before long you’ll find yourself at home. The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on.

Across our research, nostalgia emerged as a double-edged sword, a tool for both connection and disconnection. It can be an imaginary refuge from a world we don't understand and a dog whistle used to resist important growth in families, organizations, and the broader culture and to protect power, including white supremacy. What's spoken: I wish things were the way they used to be in the good ol' days. What's not spoken: When people knew their places. What's not spoken: When there was no accountability for the way my behaviors affect other people. What's not spoken: When we ignored other people's pain if it caused us discomfort. What's not spoken: When my authority was absolute and never challenged.

The placebo effect has an evil twin known as the nocebo effect. This is when the expectation of harm or pain becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, even in the absence of any known physical effect. One candidate for the nocebo effect is the discomfort some people report experiencing after using mobile phones. Scientists have failed to identify a physical cause, so it's possible the adverse effects are caused by negative beliefs about the technology.

You journey to Olympia to see the work of Phidias; and each of you holds it a misfortune not to have beheld these things before you die. Whereas when there is no need even to take a journey, but you are on the spot, with the works before you, have you no care to contemplate and study these? Will you not then perceive either who you are or unto what end you were born: or for what purpose the power of contemplation has been bestowed on you? "Well, but in life there are some things disagreeable and hard to bear." And are there none at Olympia? Are you not scorched by the heat? Are you not cramped for room? Have you not to bathe with discomfort? Are you not drenched when it rains? Have you not to endure the clamor and shouting and such annoyances as these? Well, I suppose you set all this over against the splendour of the spectacle and bear it patiently. What then? have you not received greatness of heart, received courage, received fortitude? What care I, if I am great of heart, for aught that can come to pass? What shall cast me down or disturb me? What shall seem painful? Shall I not use the power to the end for which I received it, instead of moaning and wailing over what comes to pass?

A predator’s intention…… It is my intention to cause you fear such as you have never known. It is my desire to take your fear to a whole new level of terror. I can smell your fear as its sweet scent flows through my universe. This small universe that I have created and am permitting you to exist in. I say these things because you only exist right now because I have allowed it, for if I should choose, I could snuff you out as if extinguishing a candle flame. I will make you thank me later for allowing you to breathe. I will mix you a concoction of fear, pain, uncertainty, and arousal, such as you have never known. You see my curious little prey these all create very similar physical reactions. My little prey… they have common traits on the emotional side too. Curious prey, curious prey, let me growl my intentions into your curious ear. I will keep you in a constant state of fear, pain, uncertainty, and arousal. I know exactly what I am doing; I am a skilled and professional predator. It is my full intention to own you! I will keep you in a constant emotional whirlpool. This is the universe of my making, and you exist in it by my power, and by my choice. I want you in a constant state of fear, physical discomfort, pain, uncertainty, and arousal. I am purposely blurring the lines between your emotions, and your physical sensations. As I do this… I am creating a desire and a craving within you to be man handled and taken by me. I am intentionally working you into a state of intense arousal, and desperation. I am conditioning you to crave your new life as my prey…

...TV and popular film and most kinds of 'low' art-- which just means art whose primary aim is to make money-- is lucrative precisely because it recognizes that audiences prefer 100 percent pleasure to the reality that tends to be 49 percent pleasure and 51 percent pain. Whereas 'serious' art, which is not primarily about getting money out of you, is more apt to make you uncomfortable, or to force you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort.

When Theophrastus is comparing sins – so far as they are commonly acknowledged to be comparable – he affirms the philosophic truth that sins of desire are more culpable than sins of passion. For passion’s revulsion from reason at least seems to bring with it a certain discomfort, and a half-felt sense of constraint; whereas sins of desire, in which pleasure predominates, indicate a more self-indulgent and womanish disposition. Both experience and philosophy, then, support the contention that a sin which is pleasurable deserves graver censure than one which is painful. In the one case the offender is like a man stung into an involuntary loss of control by some injustice; in the other, eagerness to gratify his desire moves him to do wrong of his own volition.

No matter who you were in sixteenth-century Europe, you could be sure of two things: you would be lucky to reach fifty years of age, and you could expect a life of discomfort and pain. Old age tires the body by thirty-five, Erasmus lamented, but half the population did not live beyond the age of twenty. There were doctors and there was medicine, but there does not seem to have been a great deal of healing. Anyone who could afford to seek a doctor's aid did so eagerly, but the doctor was as likely to maim or kill as to cure. His potions were usually noxious and sometimes fatal—but they could not have been as terrible and traumatic as the contemporary surgical methods. The surgeon and the Inquisitor differed only in their motivation: otherwise, their batteries of knives, saws, and tongs for slicing, piercing, burning, and amputating were barely distinguishable. Without any anesthetic other than strong liquor, an operation was as bad as the torments of hell.

My thoughts shift to my friends. I'd been so angry with them for grabbing my pain from me in the wake of the News. But maybe my friends were loving me the best way they knew how, just like I was trying to love Amma. We think our job as humans is to avoid pain, our job as parents is to protect our children from pain, and our job as friends is to fix each other's pain. Maybe that's why we all feel like failures so often--because we all have the wrong job description for love. What my friends didn't know about me and I didn't know about Amma is that people who are hurting don't need Avoiders, Protectors, or Fixers. What we need are patient, loving witnesses. People to sit quietly and hold space for us. People to stand in helpless vigil to our pain. There on the floor, I promise myself that I'll be that kind of mother, that kind of friend. I'll show up and stand humble in the face of a loved one's pain. I'll admit I'm as empty-handed, dumbstruck, and out of ideas as she is. I won't try to make sense of things or require more than she can offer. I won't let my discomfort with her pain keep me from witnessing it for her. I'l never try to grab or fix her pain, because I know that for as long as it takes, he pain will also be her comfort. It will be all she has left. Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I loved well. Here is my proof that I paid the price. So I'll just show up and sit quietly and practice not being God with her. I'm so sorry, I'll say. Thank you for trusting me enough to invite me close. I see your pain and it's real. I'm so sorry.

When the nurse leaves, Doctor Rose mouths, “Act like you’re in pain.” Then she mimics a painful expression in case Summer doesn’t understand. On the contrary, Summer’s an expert at interpreting body language and reading lips. It’s all thanks to her observant nature while enslaved on the Cosmos. Who else could tell that Peter’s discomfort is due to him wearing the same pair of underwear for a week straight? Ah, yes, she always knew when day six and seven approached. She watched the crew member with much amusement as he waddled, pulled wedgies, and scratched his bum relentlessly. Not that anyone else cared to know that little nugget of information.

Running is a deeply unpleasant sport at the best of times, but it is particularly awful when you’re bad at it. There is so much unpleasantness at once. First, there is the shortness of breath, then the ache in the legs, then the sharp pain of the stitch, the soreness of the feet, the discomfort of the joints, and the lactic acid burn in the thighs. Eventually, some of this subsides with the increase of dizziness, delirium and sweating. Then there are the added difficulties of cross-country running – scraping through prickly bushes, standing on sharp rocks, getting jabbed by sticks and wading through icy cold streams. Altogether, it was Friday’s idea of hell.

1. Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort? Pursuing the life projects that matter to you the most will almost always entail not feeling fully in control of your time, immune to the painful assaults of reality, or confident about the future. It means embarking on ventures that might fail, perhaps because you’ll find you lacked sufficient talent; it means risking embarrassment, holding difficult conversations, disappointing others, and getting so deep into relationships that additional suffering—when bad things happen to those you care about—is all but guaranteed. And so we naturally tend to make decisions about our daily use of time that prioritize anxiety-avoidance instead. Procrastination, distraction, commitment-phobia, clearing the decks, and taking on too many projects at once are all ways of trying to maintain the illusion that you’re in charge of things. In a subtler way, so too is compulsive worrying, which offers its own gloomy but comforting sense that you’re doing something constructive to try to stay in control. James Hollis recommends asking of every significant decision in life: “Does this choice diminish me, or enlarge me?” The question circumvents the urge to make decisions in the service of alleviating anxiety and instead helps you make contact with your deeper intentions for your time. If you’re trying to decide whether to leave a given job or relationship, say, or to redouble your commitment to it, asking what would make you happiest is likely to lure you toward the most comfortable option, or else leave you paralyzed by indecision. But you usually know, intuitively, whether remaining in a relationship or job would present the kind of challenges that will help you grow as a person (enlargement) or the kind that will cause your soul to shrivel with every passing week (diminishment). Choose uncomfortable enlargement over comfortable diminishment whenever you can.

What about physical pain? What about suffering? Hand over your existence to existence and keep quiet. All is grace. If you really had the free will and power to shape your destiny, to create your ideal life, you would most probably leave out all discomforts, all that challenges your ego, all that exposes feelings of guilt or shame or anything that threatens your attachments. You would exclude all these and replace them with chocolate-flavoured experiences. [Laughter] But however much you try to construct and secure a life that satisfies your projections, you would still fail to match, in quality and auspiciousness, the life that is unfolding without human intention. A man once said to Sri Nisargadatta, “Maharaj, your words resonate deep within my heart. I feel their power and know them to be true. But if I am to be honest in describing my experience, I would have to admit that throughout my life, I’m continuously experiencing suffering!” And Maharaj replied, “No, this is not true. You are not experiencing suffering, you are suffering your experiencing.

Dressed, she’s in front of the mirror. Armed. She puts her face on. In her case, not a matter of cosmetics, but will. How to make such a sad face hard? It took practice. Not in front of a mirror or in front of strangers, gauging her success by their expressions of horror, disgust, etc. She did it by lying in her bed, feeling and testing which muscles in her face pained under application of concerted tension. To choose the most extreme pain would be to make a fright mask. A caricature of strength. She achieved calibration one night while testing a small muscle attached to her upper lip hitting upon a register of pain a few inches below the high-tide mark of real pain. This register of discomfort became the standard for all the muscles in her face, above the eyebrows under the jaw, across the nostrils. She didn’t check with the small mirror in the janitor’s closet, didn’t need to. She knew she’d hit it.

It seems like everyone these days is putting on a mask to feel beautiful, trying to fit into some pre-established norms of how we should look. This isn’t only painful, it’s ignorant. Saying like we know, better than nature does, what is beautiful and what is not is like a two-year-old lecturing an old man about patience. Nature’s been creating beauty for millennia and you are part of that creation process. Stop the madness. Stop fighting who you are. Let the mask fall. It’ll be strange at first, yes. But, over time, you’ll see beyond the temporary discomfort of stepping outside social norms and learn to see the beauty you were born with, the beauty you’ve been taught to ignore and cover up. You’ll see beauty that will take your breath away, like a sunset. That’s how beautiful you are—like a sunset, like a forest, like a million fireflies on a calm warm night lighting up the sky. You are made by nature. Nature is wiser in the ways of beauty than cosmetics companies or magazines. Break the spell. Gain back your sanity. Go find that brilliant beauty within every single part of you. Go find the universe in your eyes. Remove that cloak that’s been pulled over your eyes and see yourself for who you really are.

We began crafting ways to apply defusion and self skills to coping with the fear and pain of acceptance. Learning to defuse from the voice of the Dictator helps us keep a healthy distance from the negative messages that pop uninvited into our minds, like “Who are you kidding, you can’t deal with this!” It also helps diminish the power of the unhelpful relations that have been embedded in our thought networks, which are often activated by the pain involved in acceptance. For example, the relation between smoking a cigarette and feeling better will be triggered by the discomfort of craving a smoke. Reconnecting with our authentic self helps us practice self-compassion as we open up to unpleasant aspects of our lives, not berating ourselves for making mistakes or for feeling fear about dealing with the pain. We see beyond the image of a broken, weak, or afflicted self to the powerful true self that can choose to feel pain.

The commitment to forgive everyone, in all situations, without exception, including ourselves, is an intensely transformative commitment. The nature of forgiveness is such that it cannot be pretended or intellectualised. It is a practice which involves deep surrender to God and sincere humility. Surrender and humility are the two qualities which will advance our evolution most significantly. The practice of forgiveness brings quietness, stillness, peace, and happiness. If we want to be happy, we must be willing to let go of that which is most painful to us. The ego will put up a vicious fight, reminding us of how justified we are in holding onto all those things. The ego gets its life force from such resentments and so it is hardly going to co-operate with its own demise. However, with a sincere desire for happiness and peace, one finds the ability to let things go. The end result more than compensates for any temporary discomfort.

Jill, of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness . . . the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. The ordinary bloke suffers that discomfort every day, every time he makes a choice between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up when he's tired or spending the day in his warm bed and losing his job. No matter which he does he always chooses what seems to hurt least or pleasures most. The average chump spends his life harried by these small decisions. But the utter scoundrel and the perfect saint merely make the same choices on a larger scale. They still pick what pleases them.

When you are in the ether you remember that you are a part of consciousness and that you are being sent out into the world to experience, learn, and grow. You know that physical life is temporary, and that the pain and adversity you face as a physical being is but a moment in your existence. Why do people choose to enter a life that is filled with pain and torment? Because from the perspective of the ether, any pain or adversity is but a blip of discomfort in the grand scheme of things. It’s like asking if you are willing to suffer a paper cut in order to gain vast wisdom and knowledge and tremendous personal growth. When we incarnate, we forget that, so yeah, it can be extremely difficult to understand why horrible things happen to you and even more disconcerting to think you chose for it to happen! This is why I feel it is so important to remember where we came from. When you remember that this life is temporary and that your goal is growth, it can make even the most horrible conditions bearable.

The father and daughter made their way north, through unknown sylvan paradises where only the owls and skunks know their way around. The hard work of paddling non-stop for many hours had long since stopped being difficult for Saweyimew. In spite of her beauty and grace, her back had grown strong and sinewy from years of canoe trips. She reveled in the exhilaration it always brought her, after the first few hours left her body insensible to pain or discomfort. Warm and tingly, lulled into peaceful contemplation by hours of the rhythmic paddling, the smell of the water, exotic blooms, animal musk. It all combined as one to make her feel so alive. Especially when it rained, and her body steamed against the cool drops, feeling invincible against the elements. The mountain of her father's back was like a rock against anything nature could throw against them. The stream of fragrant pipe-smoke still flowing from his lips, regardless of any obstacle. She felt at that moment, nothing would ever stop her father's pipe from smoking. Nothing, not death, not any force of the living or spirit world, would ever still her father's heart. Rain cleansing her to the core, she was a spring of raw power and self-reliance, paddling against all adversity--their master completely. Her father's daughter. At times like that, when it rained, she entirely understood and shared her father's outlook on life.

If I may say, Rich, your wife is looking lovelier with each passing day.” “You may,” Rich’s muffled words fell against the large red apple in his mouth. He carried a plate of various fresh fruit and the bowl of spaghetti Jace had pointed out earlier. He set the plates down and took the apple out of his mouth while he munched on a piece. “She can’t hear it enough times with the discomfort, aches, pains, bloating and cramping she feels.” “Why don’t you also share the gas, cravings and the sudden violent tendencies I get, honey?” Joanna said flippantly as she reached for the spaghetti. “Ah!” Rich smacked her hand away and moved the bowl out of her reach. He pushed the fruit bowl forward in its place. “That’s healthier for our kids.” “They want messy pasta right now.” “Tell them they don’t always get what they want.” “Their mother wants messy pasta right now.” “Tell her she doesn’t always get what she wants.” Joanna leaned forward, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrow. “Once the children are born, papa won’t be getting what he wants late at night when he gives me that “I’m in heat” look. I’m sure of that.” Rich’s hand on the apple froze. Slowly he chewed, looking up at Jace and Gael whose gazes had been volleying back and forth on the couple as they spoke. Reluctantly, he pushed the spaghetti bowl forward. He reached for the fruit bowl but winced when Joanna smacked his hand away and pulled both bowls in front of her.

He didn't like causing her discomfort. "How are your hands?" He held his out, palm up. Rounding the bed slowly, she placed hers in them. Stanislav sat up straighter and examined them closely, then swore. Raw, open blisters marred the skin at the crooks of her thumbs and the base of every finger. She had gripped that shovel for so long that the blisters had all popped and the flap of loose skin on each had torn away. It looked painful. And she had said nothing, not even complaining when she had held one hand over the steaming pot of pasta while stirring it, something that must have made her hand hurt even more. "Stop beating yourself up about it," she ordered softly. He raised his head, on a level with hers though he sat and she stood. "I wasn't intentionally listening to your thoughts," she told him. "You were sort of broadcasting them. And it wasn't your fault." "I beg to differ. Had I not compelled you to dig me up—" "You would probably be dead right now," she finished for him. Withdrawing one hand, she drew it over his hair. "It was worth it." His pulse raced at her touch. His gaze dropped to her lips. He heard her heartbeat pick up.

Had she been able to listen to her body, the true Virginia would certainly have spoken up. In order to do so, however, she needed someone to say to her: “Open your eyes! They didn’t protect you when you were in danger of losing your health and your mind, and now they refuse to see what has been done to you. How can you love them so much after all that?” No one offered that kind of support. Nor can anyone stand up to that kind of abuse alone, not even Virginia Woolf. Malcolm Ingram, the noted lecturer in psychological medicine, believed that Woolf’s “mental illness” had nothing to do with her childhood experiences, and her illness was genetically inherited from her family. Here is his opinion as quoted on the Virginia Woolf Web site: As a child she was sexually abused, but the extent and duration is difficult to establish. At worst she may have been sexually harassed and abused from the age of twelve to twenty-one by her [half-]brother George Duckworth, [fourteen] years her senior, and sexually exploited as early as six by her other [half-] brother… It is unlikely that the sexual abuse and her manic-depressive illness are related. However tempting it may be to relate the two, it must be more likely that, whatever her upbringing, her family history and genetic makeup were the determining factors in her mood swings rather than her unhappy childhood [italics added]. More relevant in her childhood experience is the long history of bereavements that punctuated her adolescence and precipitated her first depressions.3 Ingram’s text goes against my own interpretation and ignores a large volume of literature that deals with trauma and the effects of childhood abuse. Here we see how people minimize the importance of information that might cause pain or discomfort—such as childhood abuse—and blame psychiatric disorders on family history instead. Woolf must have felt keen frustration when seemingly intelligent and well-educated people attributed her condition to her mental history, denying the effects of significant childhood experiences. In the eyes of many she remained a woman possessed by “madness.” Nevertheless, the key to her condition lay tantalizingly close to the surface, so easily attainable, and yet neglected. I think that Woolf’s suicide could have been prevented if she had had an enlightened witness with whom she could have shared her feelings about the horrors inflicted on her at such an early age. But there was no one to turn to, and she considered Freud to be the expert on psychic disorders. Here she made a tragic mistake. His writings cast her into a state of severe uncertainty, and she preferred to despair of her own self rather than doubt the great father figure Sigmund Freud, who represented, as did her family, the system of values upheld by society, especially at the time.   UNFORTUNATELY,

It was December 15, 2012, the day after twenty-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children between six and seven years old, as well as six adult staff members, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. I remember thinking, Maybe if all the mothers in the world crawled on their hands and knees toward those parents in Newtown, we could take some of the pain away. We could spread their pain across all of our hearts. I would do it. Can’t we find a way to hold some of it for them? I’ll take my share. Even if it adds sadness to all my days. My friends and I didn’t rush to start a fund that day. We didn’t storm the principal’s office at our kids’ school asking for increased security measures. We didn’t call politicians or post on Facebook. We would do all that in the days to come. But the day right after the shooting, we just sat together with nothing but the sound of occasional weeping cutting through the silence. Leaning in to our shared pain and fear comforted us. Being alone in the midst of a widely reported trauma, watching endless hours of twenty-four-hour news or reading countless articles on the Internet, is the quickest way for anxiety and fear to tiptoe into your heart and plant their roots of secondary trauma. That day after the mass killing, I chose to cry with my friends, then I headed to church to cry with strangers. I couldn’t have known then that in 2017 I would speak at a fund-raiser for the Resiliency Center of Newtown and spend time sitting with a group of parents whose children were killed at Sandy Hook. What I’ve learned through my work and what I heard that night in Newtown makes one thing clear: Not enough of us know how to sit in pain with others. Worse, our discomfort shows up in ways that can hurt people and reinforce their own isolation. I have started to believe that crying with strangers in person could save the world. Today there’s a sign that welcomes you to Newtown: WE ARE SANDY HOOK. WE CHOOSE LOVE. That day when I sat in a room with other mothers from my neighborhood and cried, I wasn’t sure what we were doing or why. Today I’m pretty sure we were choosing love in our own small way.