It's our capacity to sit with the uncomfortable — not how many to-do items we can check off in a day —
that circumscribes the boundary on how much we are able to move forward.
– Tara Mohr
After a respite of several months you deserve a better opening line than this, but here we are again, end of October in Toulouse, happier than ever to be puttering in the pre-dawn hours, fixing a pot of coffee from my new favorite roaster, and planting our tush down to continue this ongoing project of love.
In accordance with my stern resolve to keep it simple, or at least not-too-complicated, let’s dive right in to this month’s topic. When considering what to write about, I usually begin with a kind of loose inventory of what’s been happening, and notice what resonates. This time, a knock on the door came in the form of an e-mail from Tara Mohr, author of Playing Big. She shared a recent blog post, which struck a chord and continued to sound. It began:
"When you are stuck, procrastinating, or perfecting…"
. . . and I was like, who, me?
Think of something, she suggested, in your work life that you want to do but are not taking much action around.
OK, you got me.
Because there are a few things — admittedly, more than a few — in my life where I am unable it seems to move forward. I see it there, right in front of me, accessible, available, inviting even; and yet I can’t quite get my arm to lift up and reach for it. Intellectually I know it’d be Good For Me! But something’s stopping me, something I can’t seem to get past.
Often, she says, what prevents us from moving on things, from taking action, is that we don’t want to feel the uncomfortable feelings that might arise — that almost definitely will arise — if we do them.
She goes on to say that this avoidance of what we don’t want to feel “is the invisible drive that shapes our lives, often unconsciously”. We can tell ourselves it's about lack of time, or knowledge, or tools, but often it's simply this: there is something we don't want to feel.
Then she suggested picturing yourself doing that thing, and all the feelings that arise. But it’s not the you-in-five-years-who-has-her-shit-together you, but you now — overtired maybe, young child, too-small apartment, insecurities and hang-ups. Notice the uncomfortable feelings surfacing.
Within maybe fifteen seconds of reading, I thought of twenty things that this could apply to. I started out with the arena of work, and then spilled over into life in general. There’s a lot of overlap. Things like:
- engaging with/posting on Instagram
- responding to person who wrote me on Instagram
- spending time drawing in the studio
- spending time drawing in the street
- painting
- responding to guy about artwork
- sharing my blog with more people
- texting anyone in French
- looking for a studio space
- contacting JD about possible exhibition
- taking any steps toward organizing next exhibition
- making an appointment with PE
- making a haircut appointment, and going
- making a dentist appointment, and going
- contacting P and meeting for French conversation
- speaking French around the house
- looking directly at my financial life
- going to the seisin
- learning new tunes
- … and pretty much anything related to me playing an any arena that’s bigger, or unfamiliar.
I noticed, as any reader might, broad themes. Each contained the possibility of growth or expansion. In many cases, there’s a potential consequence I anticipate, and that raises fear.
What Tara then says is that we can tell ourselves it’s about lack of time, or knowledge, or tools (or, in my case, money); but often it’s simply that there’s something we don’t want to feel.
So imagine yourself, she suggests, doing those things. “Live into what it would be like if it was you just as you are now — you with all the difficult feelings and nerves and fear that would show up for you as you do that thing”. Again, this is not some ideal version of you who’s thinner or prettier or less tired or more organized or whose desk is clear, but right now today. And notice what arises. What are those uncomfortable feelings for you?
When she spoke with women, and when I imagined my own feelings arising, these surfaced:
Feeling lost Feeling unskilled Feeling small and incompetent Feeling unsure Feeling exposed Feeling foolish after having made a mistake Worrying that the quality isn’t high enough Feeling out of control, without a map Feeling the fear of being ‘not nice’ or selfish Feeling the confusion of being accused of selfishness Having to experience the familiar tape of second-guessing and self-doubt about whether it’s good enough . . .
For me, the biggest is the uneasy feeling that arises when it’s a matter of trusting my decisions. Out into the vast boundary-less universe of not right and not wrong, where the guideposts are internal, or nonexistent.
Fortunately, Tara says — phewf, as le petit garçon might say — there is good news: we are actually capable of experiencing these things, we have the capacity to sit with them, and survive them. We can actually decide that it’ll be OK.
It gets better: we can even be students of the feelings themselves. Explore them, with humor and gentleness. Because the idea, behind this blog and all of it, isn’t to give ourselves 30 lashings and make ourselves feel like shit. It’s to say, gently and kindly, what can we explore here?
As she says: “We can decide it will be okay to feel that thing. We can choose to experience it, and breathe through it . . . what is this feeling about? What earlier feelings in my life does it connect back to? What happens if I sit here through it for a few moments?”
Inspired, I decided to focus on two, Instagram and drawing, on the streets of Toulouse. And as I do, seeing what feelings arise, and agreeing to just feel them.
As predicted, the self-doubt and second-guessing arrived, in spades.
I don’t know what I’m doing Cringing: Is it any good? Feeling I am muddling around in the dark, lost at sea alone Hearing the incessant voices questioning my judgement Doubting: It could have been better . . .
I steeled myself. I’m just going to feel what I feel. A little foolishness. A lot of inadequacy.
Maybe she’s right — these are survivable feelings, aren’t they? So first, there’s the willingness to experience them, and finding I can actually weather them. Second, the curiosity — looking around with wonder, and gently opening myself up to those situations and exploring the assumptions behind them, maybe even working them into something new.
Living in France, like any new place, is riddled with the potential to avoid situations where I don’t want to feel uncomfortable things. So many new situations, accompanying awkward feelings. An abundance of items on my list had to do with scheduling appointments. Can it really be that difficult? I mean, c’mon, Una. But also — argh, the intense discomfort of feeling lost, incompetent, unsure, small.
Of course, Life in General is like this, and Pema Chödrön says it really well — that there is this innocent, naïve misunderstanding we have, that we’re supposed to avoid the life that’s right in front of us, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that that would somehow make us happy. She instead encourages us to see clearly what is, with gentleness.
Avoiding uncomfortable feelings seems like a logical idea. But in doing so, am I also blocking progress, preventing myself from accessing something higher, deeper and richer? Is it like Tara says — that “It's our capacity to sit with the uncomfortable — not how many to-do items we can check off in a day — that circumscribes the boundary on how much we are able to move forward”?
Sometimes I worry that I’ve forgotten how to learn. How to go about it, whether to be organized and deliberate, or more open and fluid. Can I just allow things to unfold, without knowing what the final outcome might be?
There is also the idea of should — which never turns out well for me. Not only that I should do it, but that there is a particular way it should be done, a rulebook to follow. I was listening to a talk recently, and the speaker remarked that tools like social media are ours to shape. While we use them, we also actively create them.
I could shift my thinking and attitude, and made it a kind of gift. What do I think it could or should be?
And so I am posting, I’m drawing, I’m feeling uncomfortable feelings as I bob around in this ocean, unmoored. Not rocket science to many of you, I’m sure, but I so needed an apt and unfussy reminder.
