Just reading that word can make you uncomfortable. It can manifest in physical pain or in emotional pain. And it is one of the most power indicators and motivators of human behavior. By our very nature, we want to avoid discomfort. Physical pain as well as emotional hurt. Just the memory of a certain event or words spoken can be enough to take us back to that moment in time…and we do anything to avoid it. To escape it.
And escape can take many forms. Substance abuse is an all-too-common way people try to escape discomfort. Self-medicting to numb physical pain or to help us escape our own minds and thoughts. Some people over-spend, live beyond their means, thinking that surrounding themselves with things will distract them from their own thoughts. Their own surrounds and their own life. Some people exercise too much. Breaking down their own bodies – the idea that if they can create a physical pain, it may distract them from the emotional pain they’re refusing to deal with. Or just to literally “run away” from things.
Some people find themselves literally living their lives in endless circles. They experience an uncomfortable thing, they do something to avoid it or not deal with it, it works for a little while, then another uncomfortable thing will happen (because in life, there are lots of uncomfortable things), and they go right back to the thing they were doing to avoid the first uncomfortable thing. It becomes a vicious cycle of escape and avoidance.
These things (and countless others) work. That’s what makes these things so dangerous. But they only work in the short term. Nothing will help the body or the soul or the mind heal faster and more effectively than by truly dealing with it. Going through it. Not avoiding it.
One of our main purposes in this life (if not the only purpose) is for our soul to evolve. Which means, grow. There are lessons to learn and life will keep pitching those fast balls until we learn the lesson. If you find yourself saying, why me? Or why does this always happen to me? Why do I always meet these kinds of people…there’s a lesson the universe is trying to teach you that you aren’t learning. Once you learn it, those recurrences will stop.
So if you find yourself repeating the same cycle when it comes to how you cope with discomfort – you’re likely not learning the lesson. In the traditional tarot, The Devil is a card associated with vice. That which controls us. It can be drugs and alcohol, risky relationships, money, fame, attention from others, over-indulgence in any form. Interestingly, this card is associated with Capricorn, ruled by Saturn. I suppose that makes sense – Saturn is the task-master planet that is all about responsibility and restriction and life lessons. What better energy to deal with vice.
If you can’t bear to be without it, or bear to stop it, if you can actually feel a palpable discomfort at the idea of not being able to reach for it or do it…it’s likely a vice. What is controlling you. And you can never be in control of yourself or your life or the fulfillment of your soul’s quest if something else is controlling you. I’ve met people who get physically fidgety and edgy and angry if you take their phone away. They’ve become so controlled by having their cell phone and by social media that they can barely manage to be without it for any stretch of time. Even mere minutes.
Want to know what controls you? Give it up. Stop doing it. Stop going back to it. That old relationship you keep running back to, the bottle, the likes on Facebook. Buying things you don’t need on Amazon. Be uncomfortable. Feel discomfort. It probably won’t kill you. As the saying goes, if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger. And that’s true. As a marathon runner, I can say that you don’t train to not feel pain during the marathon…you train to tolerate the pain. So when it sneaks up on you, you know how to handle it and how to deal with it. But you don’t train to avoid it altogether. Because it’s the making it past the pain that makes the completion of the race so sweet and ultimately worth it. Conquering discomfort. Conquering your own mind and your own thoughts.
Discomfort is a helluva teacher. One of the best you’ll ever have. If you allow it to teach you what it wants you to learn. If you allow yourself to feel discomfort.
Be open to what calls you…
OracleIndigo
