Discernment v. Discomfort
A deep self-understanding comes from accepting the discomfort resulted from change.
Growth requires us to identify how development can call us into the most profound form of self. It requires that we shed pre-conceived notions that define life as we currently know it as we move towards life as we could know it. The sooner we accept and embrace this invitation, the earlier we can move into the elevation attached to growth.
In brutal terms, discomfort hurts. As I write those two words, my mind swirls through a variety of discomfort I have become familiar with, from mile 18 of a marathon, the accelerated heartbeat after standing up for yourself, moving away from a lifelong career, breakups, and fallouts. Through life, we see a lot of discomforts that challenge us to rethink and pivot. We can clench onto the ghost of life as we knew it or move towards change. I have often been guilty of shying away from the discomfort and shadowed nature of change. It’s a hard reality to accept that if you don’t make that change yourself, life has a way of course-correcting for you.
Discomfort can also be disguised as discernment, leading the strong-willed individual out of alignment with the core self. What I mean by this is that it is easy to mistake the tender realignment of discernment as the discomfort necessary for change. I have often been skeptical about the destructive nature of living out of alignment, causing damage to myself and those impacted as I forgo my discernment, in my mind turning the situation to discomfort.
Hindsight is often 20/20, and it is for me now. I am just emerging from a situation where I personally mistook discernment for discomfort. There has been peace and contentment that I have found from living into and with my core self, established through the practices of meditation, writing, movement, visualization, and many more. With each awakening comes the conviction that I am, and we all are, held accountable for what we know.
So, if you are in a place of either discomfort or discernment - I urge you to accept it and act on it, ensuring that you are operating from a place of understanding of those two perspectives and how they differ.
