Sunday night on the OWN network, two back-to-back episodes of Lifeclass with Brené Brown aired. Did you see them? I’ve read all of Brene’s books (you can see my first post on Brené here) and am a self-declared groupie and whole-hearted follower so I tuned in. I’m not the biggest Oprah fan. I respect her, but I don’t love her. But I LOVE Brené. You simply can not watch her speak, hear her words and not be drawn to her.
I was not a big fan of the social media heavy format of the show. Having people chime in on Twitter, Instagram and Skype felt like too much. The topic was a big one – dropping the armor that keeps us from being vulnerable and accepting that vulnerability is the key to connection. Trying to balance so many different media streams felt distracting. And gimmicky. It gave me that SMA (Social Media Anxiety) that I am sure will be become an official diagnosis sooner than later. You know that unsettled feeling that you might be missing something really, really important and so you keep in a state of high alert?
And even though I’m very familiar with Brené’s work, I found that I focused in on something new in the Lifeclass episode that has been floating around in my head for the last few weeks.
We’re operating under a myth of comfort.
We believe that easy and effortless = happiness. That if we can strip away all the hard stuff, then we’ll be good. We’re bombarded with messages every day about the easy way – to clean your bathroom, to shape your eyebrows, to drop five pounds, to be a good parent, to get a promotion. There are all sorts of tips and tricks and solutions out there to make things easy, accessible and comfortable.
This idea first popped up a few weeks ago when one of my favorite yoga teachers (who doesn’t just guide you through poses but takes you on a soul rocking spiritual journey every week – I’ve more than once almost burst into tears in the best way), reminded our class that “This yoga, this life is not supposed to be comfortable. This is supposed to be uncomfortable.”
She asked us, “How will you move through the uncomfortable moments? When it gets uncomfortable, what do you do?”
And then she called on us to simply pay attention without judgment, and just notice how we react when things start to get uncomfortable.
So I realized that I am totally a fidgeter/flee-er. When a yoga pose starts to get uncomfortable, I start messing with my hair, with my shirt, rearranging, shifting and then when it really starts to get uncomfortable, I leave the pose. I flee. It’s no coincidence that every argument I’ve ever had with my husband ends with me cleaning the house obsessively (fidgeting) and then storming off (fleeing).
Here’s the challenge. Are we ready to let go of the myth of comfort? Can we engage instead of disengage? Can we stay and breathe through it? Can we let ourselves be uncomfortable when the chorus and our gremlins and our ego is beckoning us toward comfort in the form of escape or numbing or wherever you go when it starts to heat up?
As Brené and Oprah reminded me on Sunday, “Be courageous or be comfortable, but you can’t be both.”
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