It's Okay to be With Your Discomfort

“Are you safe?”

That’s the text message I received.

I immediately responded with “Yes, you?”

But when I searched myself, my answer wasn’t quite as swift and succinct.

I have a unique relationship with safety in that I don’t routinely experience it in the psychological sense. I make a genuine, consistent effort to achieve it. It’s sporadic - somewhat of a moving target. Physically, that causes me to be hyper-vigilant about my surroundings. There is a somatic response linked to my feeling of safety at any given moment.

In my coach training I was given an exercise where I was asked to get feedback from people about the essence I bring into a room. How I show up or present myself in a space may impact my client’s experience. It’s a practice and commitment to understand and work through.

One person I asked said that I am “cautious” when I enter a space for the first time. I leaned in. I’d never been described in such a way. On one hand it made sense. Caution may be what keeps me fit to respond in times of crisis. I can be counted upon to measure, prevent, anticipate, and respond to unexpected events. On the other hand, it could be what contributes to exhaustion. My ego conversation is that I am the only one who can guard my post.

As I type this the nation is in an uproar of epic proportion. There is a pandemic within a pandemic, as I heard it described two days ago. Civil unrest and social justice is the order of the day. What that looks like in this moment is burning buildings, gunfire, tear gas, police dogs, looting, you name it. Both the people and the cities I love are hurting from coast to coast.

My mom lived in Los Angeles during the civil rights movement and unrest in the 70’s. I’ve spoken with her many times about social justice issues of her time. I often pontificated about what I might do. Both she and I presumed I would be a protester, on the front lines.

Those conversations led me to grow up asking myself, what do I believe in enough that I am willing to protest, be thrown in jail, and possibly injured or die to defend? There in lies the problem.

I care greatly about the issues at hand. Not only do they directly affect my family and community, I am extremely sensitive to the human condition by nature. At times it’s hard for me to be with someone else’s pain and suffering. I can take it on as my own. I learned the practice of holding space through leadership and coaching techniques.

Even with my ability to hold space and control my own emotions (to the extent that I can respond rather than react) there is still an underlying issue of safety.

It turns out that I am unwilling to put myself in harm’s way to fight for a cause I believe in. On some levels I wonder what that says about my character. What is the measuring stick for being woke? Where is there space for self-compassion and grace? What’s a way to respond and support while maintaining my commitment to personal safety?

Today’s post isn’t meant to generate or elicit a response, per se.

It is me sitting with my discomfort.

Instead of asking a question, I’ll simply invite you to sit with me for a spell.

Be with your discomfort. See what you discover there.