BLOG: The Very Best Thing To Do When the Discomfort's Too Much
Sit with it. By far it's the best advice I've ever gotten. At the time, I happened to be in a yoga studio sitting on my heels, with my toes tucked under, stretching the soles of my feet. Have you tried that recently? Wow, is it painful!
I don't think my soles had been stretched that way EVER, and there was a pure fire shooting through them that had me on high alert--fight or flight. Everything in my system told me to get away, RUN, or at the very least, to get out of the pose, and FAST.
In general, this is superb advice, right? My system read pain and wanted me to flee. After all, evolutionarily, it's kept us alive. At times, though, it's neither feasible nor even necessary.
Here, I'm thinking of labor pain. It hurts, a lot. You know that lactic acid BURN you feel in your muscles after a 90 second wall sit? It's that. Lactic acid, five-alarm FIRE.
In this case, though, you can't cheat and stand up to alleviate the burn. Your muscle's going to contract and contract and burn, burn, burn until it's ready to ease on its own. Youch!
The best you can do is sit with it, breath, relax where you can, and know it's not going to kill you. Except when it feels like it almost will, and then you wail. That works, too.
But the duration of intensity is ALWAYS finite, about ninety seconds. It's only but a moment in time, and passes into blissful ease. Mother Nature knew exactly what she was doing when she designed it this way.
Discomfort's, discomfort, though. It may be physical, but it may also be the discomfort of being stuck, at a crossroads, or completely under water.
The method still applies, though. Sit with it. Relax where you can, breathe, and know it's not going to kill you. Until it feels like it almost will, and then you wail.
It's but a moment in time, and it will always ease.
