Sitting with Discomfort: Why Avoiding Feelings Makes Them Bigger

This piece is a gentle reflection on what it means to sit with discomfort and why the feelings we avoid are often the ones that need our attention the most.

We’ve all done it. Felt that tightness in the chest, the lump in the throat, the restlessness in our bodies, and instinctively reached for something to soothe it. A scroll. A snack. A distraction. Anything to not feel the thing that’s bubbling beneath the surface.

Discomfort can be quiet at first,  anxiety before a conversation, grief in the middle of a good day, shame after saying something you wish you could take back. Sometimes it arrives without a clear reason at all, just a wave that knocks you sideways. And because we’re human, and because we’ve learned to fear what we can’t control, we push it away. 

We’re taught early on that some emotions are more acceptable than others. Joy? Great. Pride? Encouraged.

But sadness, anger, fear, or shame? Too much. Inconvenient. Embarrassing. We learn to “hold it together,” “move on,” “be strong.” And we do,  until those emotions we’ve stuffed down start showing up somewhere else.

Avoided feelings don’t dissolve. They wait. They wait in our bodies, in tight shoulders, tense jaws, uneasy stomachs. They wait in our relationships,  in withdrawal, in miscommunications. They wait until the moment they can no longer be ignored. That panic attack that came out of nowhere? That constant irritability? That heaviness you can’t quite explain? Often, it’s not random. It’s what happens when we carry things for too long, alone, unspoken.

“The only way out is through.”

— Robert Frost

Discomfort is not the enemy. Something inside you needs attention, not avoidance. When we avoid it, we don’t skip the hard part. We just prolong it. 

Sitting with discomfort doesn’t mean you have to like it. It means choosing presence over avoidance. It means pausing long enough to hear what your body might be trying to tell you. That you're tired. That you’re holding grief. That something hurt. That a boundary was crossed. That you miss a version of yourself. 

This doesn’t have to happen all at once. Sometimes sitting with discomfort looks like taking five breaths instead of numbing out. Sometimes it looks like journaling, or talking to someone who can hold space without rushing you to fix it. Sometimes it just looks like not running for once.

Our body perceives discomfort as not being safe - and if we are talking about trauma then that feeling is going to be very, very strong. It might feel impossible to sit with the discomfort and know that you are safe. If thats the case, sometimes we need someone to sit with us in the discomfort, and sometimes that person is a therapist who creates a safe space to process feelings rather than avoid. 

It’s okay to feel what you feel. It’s okay if you’ve spent years avoiding it. That was likely necessary for your survival, to get through whatever hardship you faced. 

Turn toward your inner world with curiosity instead of judgment. And when you need someone to sit with you in the discomfort - we’re here to help.