00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. And this is episode number 62, "The Value of Discomfort." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright here we are, back for another podcast. I just enjoy being here so much. I love the process for me of taking a concept and working through it. And working through it on paper to get my thoughts down and to create new thoughts has been such a blessing for me because usually I might just think about it a little bit in my head and it's all good. But this is really making me get concepts down hard in my head. I'm really loving this process and I hope that you're loving it as well. I hope that this is a positive thing for you. If you've been with me the whole time, kudos to you, thank you for sticking with me and thank you for joining me. And for those of you who are newer, thank you as well for joining. I hope that you find some great stuff here and I hope that you go back and find some past podcasts that are interesting to you as well and that teach some great concepts to you. 

01:18 

So here we go, we're going to move on today. We're talking about the value of discomfort. Doesn't that word just cause you to feel all, gosh, I don't know, uncomfortable? Of course it does. None of us likes discomfort. It doesn't feel good. And our brains are wired to avoid discomfort because back in the caveman days, discomfort was rarely a good thing. Back then, discomfort meant you were starving or the spring water had dried up or the mammoths had moved on. Discomfort back in the day could very easily mean death, so our brains naturally tried to get us out of uncomfortable situations. And thousands of years ago, this may have been a super helpful skill of our brain, but nowadays we don't face the same kinds of life threatening situations. But our brain doesn't know that. All it knows is that discomfort could mean death. But our lives are so different now, and rarely are most of us facing death on a regular basis. Most of us live our lives years at a time, or even our whole lives, without ever really facing death, until the end of course. But we do feel discomfort. 

02:33 

So let's talk about this discomfort, shall we? We live in an amazing time, when we are so incredibly blessed. Most of us have central heat and air in our homes. And this allows us to create the perfect temperature at just about any time, so we never have to feel uncomfortable. Same thing in our vehicles. When I'm driving around in the summer and I get a little hot, I can move the temperature just one degree down if I want to make myself feel completely comfortable. And in the winter, I can do the same, but moving it up. But I have the added benefit of switching on that amazing seat warmer as well if I get too cold. In fact, I can even sit in my home where I'm nice and cozy and comfortable. I can push a button on the car remote and the car will start on its own and heat up before I even go out to the garage. So I don't even have to be uncomfortable for the three or four minutes it would take to heat it up if I just went out and manually started it and started driving. 

03:33 

But beyond temperature, let's talk food. So many of us never know what it's like to really be hungry. Our homes are filled with all sorts of snacks, healthy and unhealthy. They are just at our disposal within seconds of our body either feeling the sensation of being hungry or our brains just getting the urge and thinking that something to eat would be nice. We never have to sit in that hunger. And what if we don't like the food? We don't even have to endure the discomfort of eating something we don't like. And we've trained our children in this area as well by making them a different meal if they don't enjoy what we've made for dinner. No discomfort in eating foods we may not enjoy, right? And if I'm driving around and I feel a little hungry, I have hundreds of fast food options within 20 minutes of where I am. Absolutely no need to go hungry or thirsty. I can get drinks there too, right? The discomfort of hunger, rarely a thing. 

04:39 

Watching TV and commercials comes on, absolutely not. Who wants to endure the discomfort of having to sit through that?  We have loads of options, so we never have to watch a commercial we aren't interested in. And waiting a week for the next episode to come out. Most of us don't even have to suffer through that discomfort either. I know I just refuse to start watching a show until the whole season comes out, right? Because then I can binge watch it so there's no having to wait even a day to see what's going to happen next. No discomfort. 

05:12 

This concept of never having to really feel discomfort is actually fairly new in our society. The miracle of the smartphone, the proliferation of so many restaurants, the television tech, these have all come about in my lifetime actually in about the last fourth of my lifetime. Isn't it crazy to think about? Think about how much discomfort we had to endure as kids. My family would pile eight of us into a station wagon sitting on top of each other or crammed in the back and we wouldn't take water bottles or food to eat. Who had water bottles back in the 70s and 80s? I mean that just wasn't even a thing. Can you imagine? A three-hour trip with no food or water? Amazing that we survived that, don't you think? My home in Idaho, growing up, did not have central air. And I went to my dad's house several years ago before he died in the summer, and I was dying, it was so hot. I don't remember being that hot when I was a kid. I must have just been accustomed to the discomfort of being warm. And in the middle of that Idaho winter, I actually had to walk to school. I remember one day it was negative six degrees walking to school. About a mile when I was young, and about two when I was in junior high and high school. And it really wasn't a big deal. Being cold, I could handle the discomfort of being cold. Now, ooh, yeah, I detest being cold, right? And I get so miserable when I'm cold. 

06:47 

Okay, what about our favorite TV shows? The stress when we were kids of having to run to the bathroom or do a sink full of dishes during a commercial break was unbelievable. If we didn't get back on time, we just entirely missed it. We don't experience that discomfort anymore. Now, I'm not saying that I want to embrace all of these discomforts again. I really love central heat and air, and the seat warmers in my car just bring tears to my eyes some days, because I love them so much. I love all of these conveniences. I love being able to stop and grab something to eat if I need. I love all of that, and I don't want to go back. But I do believe very strongly that all of this lack of discomfort is causing some serious problems in our society. 

07:35 

Our tolerance for discomfort is alarmingly low, and yet so much of life centers around some sort of discomfort. I know a lot of people who are not happy with the weight and the health of their bodies, but when it comes to maintaining a healthy food regimen, it's just too uncomfortable. The urges we feel to want to eat are so uncomfortable that many of us give in and eat rather than sticking with what we have previously decided, if we have previously decided, right? 

08:07 

A huge issue, I believe, is also associated with our emotional health. Life just gives us all sorts of emotions. We have situations that are big and overwhelming and those feelings are just so uncomfortable. And all research says we need to have those emotions and we need to feel them and we need to work through them. But rather than feeling those emotions and working through them, so many of us have learned to buffer them out. We are humans. We are not meant to be happy all the time. We are created to feel a whole range of emotions from difficult and uncomfortable ones to happy and amazing ones. But somehow in our society, we have moved into the idea that we should be happy all of the time that we shouldn't ever feel the difficult and uncomfortable emotions. So when we have an experience that brings about these emotions, we might resist and fight them. We might ignore them and pretend they don't exist, or we might buffer by getting something to eat, picking up our phones to distract our minds, watch TV or get on social media. 

09:12 

And I'm gonna be upfront and say that I don't have any research to back up this idea that I'm gonna put out here right now, but this just makes so much sense to me with what I see. As I watch these middle school kids that I get to hang out with every day, they have little-to-no tolerance for discomfort. And this lack of tolerance is showing up, I believe, in depression and anxiety. I have students who have never had to do a difficult or uncomfortable thing in their life. Their parents, what I recently heard of referred to as "lawnmower parents," have mowed down any difficult situation that would cause their child to feel discomfort. Their child didn't like dinner. They were made something they didn't like. They didn't have to go through the discomfort of eating something they didn't like. The child decided after one game they didn't like soccer. They never had to go back. The child doesn't like their teacher at school. The parents call to get the teacher changed or move them to a different school if they can't get them what they want. The student is nervous to give a presentation. The parent contacts the school to exempt their child from having to give one. The child has a quarrel with a friend. The parent steps in to resolve  the conflict. 

10:24 

Now, lest you think I'm saying depression and anxiety are all a cause of parents, I am not. I know full well that there are chemical and hormonal imbalances in our bodies and our brains that bring some of this on. But I also believe that situations like depression and anxiety that are growing at such an alarming rate, that much of it is because we are not building up a tolerance for discomfort in our society. Our children from a very young age are not allowed to feel discomfort. Just look around at all the one-year-old children in the grocery store on phones. They are not allowed to feel the discomfort of being bored and are given a phone so they won't make a fuss. But just as valid maybe it's the parents who don't like the discomfort of hearing their child cry or whine. And so the parents give their child a phone to ease their own discomfort. When children are not given opportunities when they are young to build up a tolerance for discomfort, when they are not given the opportunity to face their fears and tackle their nerves when they are young, they never develop the capability to do it when they're older. 

11:37 

And another byproduct is they never develop the sense of accomplishment and confidence that they can handle these situations that are going to come up in their lives. So a small nervousness that the child never has to face when they're young gets bigger and bigger over the years because our situations do get bigger, and if they've never had to work through those feelings and then eventually they come to me at my school as a 14 year old and they are petrified at having to stand and even say their name out loud. Their normal people nerves have grown into full-blown anxiety because now the situations are bigger but they haven't learned to handle their nerves in the small situation. These kids in my classroom have absolutely no tolerance for being bored and, like it or not, a huge part of life is being bored. Not everything is going to excite and thrill us. A lot of things are just mundane normal boring tasks. 

12:40 

So these kids develop very little confidence in their ability to handle difficult situations because anytime something felt uncomfortable it was taken away and they didn't have to learn how to manage those difficult emotions. So now we have hordes of teenagers who have no confidence in themselves and their abilities and they begin to shut down. They begin to shut down through depression and anxiety. They don't know how to work through the feelings of being sad because anytime they were sad they were given a phone or distracted by some candy. So this inability to feel and work through discomfort is a huge issue in our society I believe. 

13:23 

And I know I focused a lot on the kids but what about the adults? We may have started off our lives living with a little bit more discomfort but we have gotten awfully soft. We are quick to give up or to give in. We choose passive-aggressive behaviors rather than setting clear boundaries because setting clear boundaries is uncomfortable, right? We pick up our phones to distract ourselves when we're bored and sitting in the doctor's office. We put in our earbuds immediately when we get on our seat on the plane so we don't have to deal with the discomfort of talking to the person sitting next to us. We are just as horrible at feeling discomfort as many of us have trained our kids to be. 

14:04 

And here's the really, really big problem with that. There is no growth without discomfort. There is no progression without discomfort. There is no confidence without discomfort. There is no real happiness without discomfort. I love that Brooke Castillo says that "discomfort is the currency to fulfill our dreams." True? I absolutely believe it. Growing into the person we dream of is not an easy process. It's uncomfortable. It's hard work. Self-care. It's boring. It's a lot of uncomfortable discipline like getting up early, going to bed early, reading instead of watching, eating healthier foods rather than things that are easy and unhealthy and so sweet and yummy. But self-care is one of the best things I can do to grow into a better version of myself. But it is uncomfortable. 

15:02 

One of the best things I do for my own self-care is to get up early and exercise at 5am. I've done this now for over 20 years fairly regularly. Is it uncomfortable? Darn right, it is. I'm laying there all comfy cozy in my bed and I'm wanting to sleep more and I choose instead to get myself out of that comfort and out of bed. I'm actually taking myself from a place of comfort into something that's not intentionally, right? And yet the discomfort of exercising early in the morning I feel makes the biggest difference in my mental health. And since we have such great discussions when we exercise I would say my emotional health as well. This exercising early in the morning for me is the biggest self-care I can do. Self-care is boring. Self-care is hard and it does not feel comfortable. But it is one of the greatest things we need to do for ourselves, is self-care, right? If someone wants better physical health, what does that require? Discomfort. Eating healthy foods. Eating smaller amounts. Not eating when they have an urge to eat. Exercising. All things that create discomfort. And our brain is screaming we're gonna die if we don't eat that cookie right now. But our mind has to take over and say "thank you, brain, for trying to keep me alive and out of discomfort. But this cookie is not a life or death food situation and our mind needs to sit with the discomfort of an urge to eat the cookie." 

16:42 

Here's the thing, discomfort is just a feeling. And what's the worst thing about a feeling? You feel it. That's it. You feel the feeling. The worst thing that can happen is the feeling. You feel it and then it goes away. If you want to start your own business, you will be flooded with discomfort all the time. Trust me. I experience so much discomfort in working to figure out how to do this business. But discomfort is the currency to fulfill my dreams. And unless I feel the discomfort, I won't ever get this business to the level of success that I want to get it. Discomfort is non-negotiable when it comes to growth, but our tolerance is so low with our amazing society right now that many of us are not comfortable with being uncomfortable. And until we are, we will never be able to grow into our potential. 

17:41 

Discomfort is life. Want a great relationship with someone? It's going to require some discomfort. It is not comfortable to set boundaries or have tough conversations that need to be had, but it is impossible to have a healthy relationship without those uncomfortable situations. What about vulnerability? This is one of the key ingredients for a connected strong relationship, but is vulnerability comfortable? Absolutely not. It is terrifying to open up your soul to another person. What about asking for forgiveness when you've crossed a boundary? Comfortable? Heavens, no. So uncomfortable, but also the only way to move into healing our relationship and creating stronger connections with the people we love and desire to keep around. 

18:30 

What about the discipline it takes to really pray intently and to read scriptures with real focus? Comfortable? Tell you what, not for me. The discomfort to focus my mind is excruciatingly painful sometimes because my brain just wants to go everywhere but down the prayer path. It's uncomfortable for me to push myself to connect with God, but only when I'm willing to engage in the discomfort of discipline will I grow the relationship with my Heavenly Father that I truly ache for. Repentance? Uncomfortable. Setting aside our pride? Uncomfortable. Getting up early on a Saturday morning to go help someone move? Uncomfortable. Getting off the sofa and getting to the temple? Uncomfortable. Anything we really want in life is going to require that we engage with discomfort. Anything worth really having is going to put us in the path of discomfort. Any growth into our greatest potential is going to walk us through the valley of discomfort. Discomfort is the way. 

19:41 

So, here we are, a society that fights discomfort at every turn, with physical comfort so abundant that we rarely feel the discomfort of daily living, with a brain that fears discomfort because deep down it senses that we're in danger when we're really not. And yet, until we learn to embrace the discomfort that life does have to offer us, mostly the emotional discomfort at this point, we will never grow into the potential that God has to offer us. The value of discomfort is great. When we learn to recognize and allow discomfort in our lives, we will have made a huge step in the direction of growth. When we learn to embrace the discomfort and look forward to it and work through it, we will be in a place of massive growth. And this is where our greatest fulfillment in life will be found. 

20:38 

Alright, my friends. That is it for today. I really love this process called "growing up." I just think it's amazing. I had a friend who told me when I turned 50, she said "you're gonna love your 50s." She said they are the best years ever, and she's in her 60s. She says because you start making sense of everything, which I totally see in my mind, she says you have the wisdom of all these years of experience and yet you still have a healthy body that you can work and do the things. And I'm finding this true. I mean, I definitely see my body going through some aging process stuff, but I'm still healthy and I'm just mentally in such a good place. I would never go back. I love my 50s. 

21:25 

Alright, so I can help you. If you are struggling with something and just need to get your head in the game, give me a call. Get on my website, tanyahale.com. You can send me an email and request a meeting with me and I will get in touch with  you and we will set something up. I hope that you are loving this podcast. If so, share it with someone else who you think might love it. And go ahead and leave me a review if you will. I'm trying to get to 100 reviews. Alright, my friends, that is it for today. I appreciate you being here and sharing this time with me. Hope you have one of your best days ever. See you later. 

22:03 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.