Leaning into Discomfort [Episode #518]

This week’s topic is: Leaning into Discomfort

This is a wonderful topic especially in the West, because I think that we are taught to run away from pain, to shift, to numb, to distract, to find a way around it. And in Eastern philosophy there’s a lot of emphasis on being okay with sitting in suffering and discomfort and not always having our likes catered to.

We can actually see that in much more extreme spiritual practices where monks may meditate in freezing cold rivers overnight and be in the hot desert with all the flies around them. You see and read about certain things like that, where we’re able to transcend discomfort. It becomes another experience and we don’t label it as good, bad, and all the different parts of our lives which we often put labels on.

Versus letting everything be as it is and letting ourselves experience the full range of feelings and emotions. And when we do that, we step into our power because our power is wholeness and completeness. It includes the shadow sides, which are in discomfort comes growth afterwards, and pain often brings some sort of evolvement.

It’s not that we seek it out or we’re trying to hurt ourselves. It’s that we flow with life, and when things show up, we meet them. We meet them where they are and where we are, and we go through, we don’t try to distract.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question and 3 more sent in by Beauties just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Questions Answered]

Steph – WA

I had an argument with a lifelong friend and don’t know how to make amends. It’s over something so small and I’m worried it’s going to wreck our friendship. I really feel wronged. Should I be the first one to approach her? I feel so uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Mary – FL

I’ve been working from home through the whole covid virus and sometimes wonder if I’ve really felt or connected to what’s happening in the world? Not sure if I’m trying to avoid reality.

Debra – NH

I’ve done cleanses which have caused so much cramping and discomfort, so I try to avoid them. Is there some truth with our emotions having an impact on how we feel physically, and how can I overcome not wanting to do another cleanse?

Michelle – Michigan

Kimberly, how do you face difficult topics with your husband? I end up keeping my mouth shut instead of speaking my mind in order to keep peace in our marriage. I know there has to be a better way but I hate the arguments that come with opening up.

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Inspirational Thought of the Week

The only way fully out is through.

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Hey Beauties and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast, which is our community show, and all these questions have come from beauties just like you. So I love this show, I love to hear what you’re thinking. I love to hear how else we can support each other on this journey. And just by writing into the show, I feel that you are doing an amazing part in helping to support the community, because we all have a lot of the same questions and we all go through so much of the same stuff. So thank you thank you for being part of the community. I send you lots of love.

Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes

Kimberly: 00:39 And before we get going, I will just give a quick reminder to, speaking of love, to please leave us a review on iTunes. We all know that reviews are a great way for other beauties to find the show. It’s a great way to give back and it’s free. It’s easy. So thank you so much in advance, and while you’re over there, you can also please remember to subscribe to the show, which is just a really nice practical self-care item. We all get caught up in daily life. We all get busy. So it’s just a nice little way to take the thinking out of staying connected to the community.

Kimberly: 01:27 All right, all that being said, I’m really excited for our topic today, which I haven’t even announced yet. It is actually Leaning into Discomfort. And this is a wonderful, wonderful topic because especially in the West, I think that we are taught to run away from pain, to shift, to numb, to distract, to find a way around it. And in Eastern philosophy, where actually there’s a lot of emphasis on being okay with sitting in suffering and discomfort and not always having our likes catered to. And we can actually see that in a much more extreme and not necessary for us to practice, but you see that in the more extreme spiritual practices where monks may meditate in freezing cold rivers overnight and be in the hot desert with all the flies around them. You see and read about certain things like that, where we’re able to transcend discomfort, and it just becomes another experience and we don’t label it as good, bad, and all the different parts of our lives which we often put labels on. Good, bad, avoid this, black, white, go for this.

Kimberly: 03:03 Versus just letting everything be as it is and letting ourselves experience the full range of feelings and emotions. And when we do that, we step into our power because our power is wholeness and completeness, and it includes the shadow sides, which are in discomfort comes growth afterwards, and pain often brings some sort of evolvement. And it’s not that we seek it out. It’s not that we’re trying to hurt ourselves. But it’s that we flow with life, and when things show up, we meet them. We meet them where they are and where we are, and we go through, we don’t try to distract. And often I find that it just keeps us being lighter beings. We don’t want to bioaccumulate waste and toxins in our body, so we eat less and less dairy and fried foods, let’s say. We try to eat more organic food. We try to eat more alive food, things like sprouts and raw almond milk and fruit.

Kimberly: 04:16 And we also try to avoid heaviness. And then overall the vibration of our digestive systems becomes lighter and there’s more flow and energy and cleaner blood and prana and oxygen and our cells get more rejuvenation. So we can think about that from an energetic standpoint. When we feel feelings, we let them digest through. And in contrast, if we avoid or turn away from, we’ve touched on the feeling. So it’s somewhere in our consciousness, but we haven’t seen it through, we haven’t digested it. So it often ends up staying suppressed or repressed somewhere in our system. And this is what leads to trauma and stories and triggers and wounds and ways, behaviors that we continue to act out all of us in ways that we may or may not know. I know I certainly have triggers that I’ve worked on and I’ve become more aware of as I’ve looked at myself.

Kimberly: 05:21 So this is a bit of an intro, but I do feel a lot. I have a lot of passion about this topic of leaning into discomfort and also just how much I’ve grown as I’ve done that and been able to look at qualities of myself and things like being really quite impatient in the past and where that comes from and being a perfectionist, things like that. So that being said, that’s my intro on this fantastic topic, and thank you lovelies ahead of time now, as I read question. Thank you for submitting your questions.

Question 1: I had an argument with a lifelong friend and don’t know how to make amends. it’s over something so small and I’m worried it’s going to wreck our friendship. I really feel wronged. Should I be the first one to approach her? I feel so uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Kimberly: The first one comes from Stef in Washington state. She writes, “I had an argument with a lifelong friend and don’t know how to make amends. it’s over something so small and I’m worried it’s going to wreck our friendship. I really feel wronged. Should I be the first one to approach her? I feel so uncomfortable with the whole thing.”

Kimberly: 06:22 Stef, big hug, big girly hug. I think that all of us, all of us period, and especially us girls can relate to having a little tiff with one of our besties and just feeling really hurt and misunderstood or just feeling out a place with someone that’s really important to us. And at first, the anger can take over, but then it starts to melt into… Or often if it really is an authentic friendship, it starts to melt into a bit of sadness and regret, and, “Oh, I want to fix this. I don’t like this feeling. I want it to go back to being good.” So we want to listen to that. That is the voice of love and harmony and peace, and that is our true nature. Our true nature is not divisive. It’s not holding onto resentment. Our true nature gets hurt by that because it’s falsehood, it’s darkness. It’s not darkness in the transformative sense, but darkness like we’re just holding energy, to feel stuck.

Kimberly: 07:35 So to answer your question, Stef, absolutely be the first one to approach her. This is not a time… No one gets anything out of being prideful or waiting and seeing who comes to them. Just come with an open heart. Be the bigger woman, just the person with a bigger heart that doesn’t care if they’re the first one to break the silence, doesn’t care if they’re the one that’s wronged, but really cares more about love and friendship and harmony, and that’s where we act from. So sometimes we do get caught up in right, wrong, but believe me, I really feel, and I think, Stef, if you close your eyes and put your hand on your heart and feel with me, I feel I would rather be happy with a deep friendship than hold on to being right. Feel into that.

Kimberly: 08:32 I want to be back with my friend and having a giggly girl time and hanging out and talking and not have a separation. So again, when you think about it that way, just open your heart and call her up or send a text or whatever, how you guys best communicate, reach out. Yeah, give the love. Don’t hold back on the love. The more the love, the better and brighter and more amazing our lives become for sure. So that’s a clear, yes. Be the one, Stef, for this answer. And thank you so much for your question and wishing you all the best. I feel like if you come from love it will work out the best that it can. Amazing. All right. Off to an amazing start.

Question 2: I’ve been working from home through the whole COVID virus and sometimes wonder if I’m really felt or connected to what’s happening in the world. I’m not sure if I’m trying to avoid reality.

Kimberly: 09:23 And our second question comes from Mary, from Florida. And she writes, “I’ve been working from home through the whole COVID virus and sometimes wonder if I’m really felt or connected to what’s happening in the world. I’m not sure if I’m trying to avoid reality.”

Kimberly: Mary, thank you so much for your question. I think that this is a really natural question. I send you a hug all the way down there in Florida, a state that I love. I think our normal frame of reference is idle chatter and seeing people around and hearing conversation and just being around people. We’re tribal, we’re meant to see other humans. It’s a very different frame of reference when we don’t have that everyday contact and natural organic communication to start wondering if we are, like you said, just not living in reality or something’s off with us, or there’s something that we should think about shifting.

Kimberly: 10:28 And my answer to that is that I feel that this is a really special and unique time. And of course we say with compassion, there’s suffering with people that are very sick and people that are have suffered financially and my heart goes out to them. But that aside, if we look to the positive, if we could look for a positive, it’s that this time has given us a pause to even wonder what is reality? Not to get too philosophical, but when you think about it, what’s reality? This is our current reality and the reality before was different. And it’s also a reality when we’re home and we’re living our lives and we’re in a more inward space. So I think that one of the beauties of this period is being able to question and think about reality and think about our everyday experience and how do we want to shift it? We see how radically it can shift. So what we thought was so permanent and something that couldn’t be shifted, we now are starting to see, “Oh, it actually can be. I would say that we can start to work on how we really want to shape our own reality and our day-to-day experience and use this time to be really conscious about that. And I would do it in terms of our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth. From a food perspective what do we want our reality to be? How do we want to feel? What kind of food do we want to shop for? What kind of meals do we want to make? How do we want to eat? How do we want to digest?

Kimberly: 00:45 From a body standpoint, how do we want to move our body? How do we want to feel in our body? Do we want to feel strong, flexible, connected, making sure we’re taking our SBO Probiotics, Detoxy, proper supplements taking care of our skin? And I can’t help but say we have an amazing high-performance non-toxic Solluna Skincare System. If you don’t know about it yet go check it out on the website I’ll leave it there, it’s pretty awesome though.

Kimberly: 01:15 And emotionally, how do we want to feel? What are the emotions we want to embody and what are our practices that we commit to to help dissipate stress? Journaling, bath time for me, a nightly shower, meditation, just having time in the evening for me is pretty critical otherwise I start to feel like I’m burning both ends of the candle and that doesn’t feel good. Just having our time carved out to heal and regenerate and spiritually same thing, having enough time to meditate and to have a real place, a consistent place ideally that we do our practice.

Kimberly: 01:54 For me is really just in my bed to be honest, because I meditate there in the morning with the kids in the bed, so I’d meditate there in the evening as well. And I think whatever works I think it’s going to look different in our busy lives and I think that’s okay. Thinking through the cornerstones for you, Mary, for all you guys, how best to create what you want to create going forward in this period of COVID and beyond. And that’s a really great way I think of feeling connected to yourself and creating your own reality.

Kimberly: 02:29 All right, I love this topic Leaning into Discomfort. I will be right back after this short break.

Break

Kimberly: All right Beauties, we have two more questions for you guys on this topic of Leaning into Discomfort.

Question 3: I’ve done cleanses which have caused so much cramping and discomfort so I try to avoid them. Is there some truth with our emotions having an impact on how we feel physically and how I can overcome not wanting to do another cleanse?

Kimberly: And our first question comes from Deborah, who is from New Hampshire, Deborah from New Hampshire. And she writes, “I’ve done cleanses which have caused so much cramping and discomfort so I try to avoid them. Is there some truth with our emotions having an impact on how we feel physically and how I can overcome not wanting to do another cleanse?”

Kimberly: 03:21 Wow, this is a really interesting question Deborah with a couple of different aspects within it. So first of all I’ll say that not every cleanse should cause cramping and a lot of discomfort. I’m not sure what sort of cleanse you’ve done in the past but you can do something a lot more simple for your body. You can just have more soup and smoothies and take a lot of digestive enzymes to help you digest everything. That’s the first thing I would say is definitely… I’ll just assure you that not every cleanse has to be like that and I would certainly avoid the cleanses that have resulted in that in your body.

Kimberly: 04:11 Secondly, our emotions do have an impact on how we feel physically. Our mind and our body are one interconnected system, they are not connected. Connected implies two different things which join at different points, rather our mind and our body operate as a continuous feedback loop system. If we have blocked emotions we hold on to shame and guilt, we hold onto anger and resentment, we create a blocked energy and that I think definitely results in aches and pains in our body perhaps or indigestion, different ways that energy starts to feel blocked in our body because that’s the energy that we are manifesting with our mind. So I definitely believe that one affects the other.

Kimberly: 05:05 We want to feel open and limber in our bodies, we want to stretch, we want to eat a mostly or all plant-based diet to just keep our bodies really open and so that we bioaccumulate as least acid as possible and we just keep a really oxygen-rich environment which is wonderful for our energy and our beauty and our skin and our vitality overall. And we just continue on this journey of living a holistic life of also being sure to journal and to think about our stress and our mental wellbeing and to take time to meditate and to be in nature and to ground ourselves.

Kimberly: 05:51 I would say, Deborah, all of this is true. I don’t think you have to do another cleanse right now, I think you should focus on integrating this idea that emotions affect our physicality. I would encourage you to dive into this Four Cornerstone philosophy which can be so life-changing especially if you start to make small, very simple steps but in each of the cornerstones. So maybe you start shifting how you eat or you drink hot water with lemon and you take your probiotics and then you start to journal and meditate for some time in the morning and sometime in the evening, and you work on your lifestyle.

Kimberly: 06:39 And then when you feel ready, when you feel called to do a cleanse at some point, it should feel organic and it should feel that your body is craving it and you should think through and definitely educate yourself as to the type of cleanse. And if what you did in the past was for instance an all juice fast and that made your system react so strongly, then maybe do something with some food. Like I said, simple food like soups or just puddings and smoothies and foods like that, fairly low-fat, low-oil. But there’s many different types of cleanses but like I said you don’t have to feel like you’re doing that right away. I love the question. All right, Deborah, thank you.

Question 4: Kimberly, how do you face difficult topics with your husband? I end up keeping my mouth shut instead of speaking my mind in order to keep peace in our marriage. I know there has to be a better way but I hate the arguments that come with opening up.

Kimberly: 07:28 And our next and final question comes from, Michelle, who is from Michigan. And she writes, “Kimberly, how do you face difficult topics with your husband? I end up keeping my mouth shut instead of speaking my mind in order to keep peace in our marriage. I know there has to be a better way but I hate the arguments that come with opening up.” Wow, this is a really candid question, Michelle, thank you so much for this. I can feel the energy behind it, I can feel a real charge, a real passion. I can feel there’s a lot of love there that you have in your relationship.

Kimberly: 08:05 But I can also feel that there’s love and hopefully this love continues to grow for yourself. And with self-love comes power and it comes respect and opportunity and healthy boundaries and a joyful life. And it’s really important that we are in a respectful environment. We don’t want to do in a relationship just push down if something needs to be addressed and it ends up being stuck in our bodies, like we were speaking about in the last question about energy flow. We may hold on to some resentment, we may just not feel fully understood and it eats away at us to an extent.

Kimberly: 09:00 I will say that you want to have an honest relationship but you also want to go about it in a really mindful, conscious way. When you bring up a topic, it’s really important, I would say, you want to make sure you’re in a relaxed environment and you’re both feeling relaxed going into it, there isn’t some sort of argument that you’re tacking this onto. But I think if you come with a very open heart and you come with honesty and you make it about you and you say, “Hey, I’ve been feeling blah, blah, blah, and so I wanted to talk to you about this blah, blah, blah. And I really want to keep this peaceful, I really love you so much and I want to get closer and it’s really important to our marriage and so that’s why I want to talk about this.

Kimberly: 09:49 That’s the way I do talk to my husband about certain topics that come up. And so I preface it with my intention and how much I value him and our love, and sometimes it goes down well and sometimes he still to be honest reacts and doesn’t necessarily initially accept. Or what I have to say sometimes he needs some space and time and that’s okay, I definitely feel that’s healthy. And that we often come back together and we talk about it and we talk it through. Sometimes that’s our process, I think every couple has to find their process.

Kimberly: 10:29 But I think again it has to come from a space of respect where no one’s screaming or talking over anybody else but you come calm. And sometimes if you start to feel charged, if your heart starts to race, start to really tune into your body, and before you keep speaking, really speak to your body and tell your body that it’s okay to calm down. Tell your body that there’s nothing to be nervous about, there’s nothing to react to. You can just breathe and let your whole system start to calm down. And so the more you cue and pay attention to your body as well, then you start to retrain your whole nervous system. And again, these are just some of the ways that we can continue to evolve and go deeper in our bodies and our practice. And it is really important again though, healthy, clear, honest, open communication.

Kimberly: 11:28 I hope that helps, Michelle. I would definitely face it and figure out a way to communicate from your heart to your hubby in a way that isn’t triggering to him. And hopefully just straight, clear communication is all that it takes. And he may hear it in a different way, a little bit of discussion may be needed but it comes from your heart. It is from your heart, it’s really beautiful. So thank you so much for your question, thank you so much for being in our community.

Thought of the Week

Kimberly: 11:56 And Beauties, thank you all so much for tuning in. I’m willing to leave you with my last thought of the week, which I also wrote this right before the show today. I did not read the questions prior. I don’t actually like to read the questions prior because I think part of the magic of the show is our genuine connection. Can you feel it? If you’re listening to this we’re connected and I feel like when I hear the question it’s really fresh and I base it off of what comes through me and the spanda, the inspiration.

Kimberly: 12:39 I don’t want to read the questions before, I don’t want to plan, I don’t even want to get anything into my head. I really value that spontaneity, that’s part of this show. Just so you guys know I don’t read the questions but I do read the topic and based off the topic I come up with… A spanda inspiration arises or I wait for it to rise about the quote of the week.

Kimberly: 13:04 And the one that I came up with for today is, the only way fully out is through. We’re talking about discomfort and this idea of breathing through a situation instead of reacting and screaming and staying charged actually, but letting it pass through us and then acting from a calm place. It doesn’t always happen, it’s not easy always but that’s the goal, right? That’s what we work towards, that’s what gets easier over time.

Kimberly: 13:35 And also going through a digestive issue as I did as lot of us do and have continuing to take the probiotics, continuing to do the work, to cut out the gluten and the dairy, so on and so forth and starting to repair the system more and more day-by-day. To go through feeling pain to feeling anger, to feeling resentment, to feeling whatever we feel and then to letting it pass through is so powerful and really that’s what makes us free, and that’s what opens up our energy and our health and our vitality. The more we let go, the more we forgive, the more we go through and feel something and then let it go, the more open and more powerful we become. And that becomes part of our daily practice, just working to let go of things as they arise in faster and faster time.

Kimberly: 14:32 Something I’m working on, I think we all continue to work on being more in full consciousness and that we keep… It’s like layers of an onion, we peel back more and then we say, “Oh, there’s another little trigger, another little thing to work on.” So we all continue to work and that the beauty of the journey. I will be back here beauties Monday for our next podcast interview or solo cast. Till then have an amazing weekend, take great care of yourself. I’ll see you over on Instagram @_kimberlysnyder or on the website cyberspace somewhere. Until then a big virtual hug, sending you lots of love and see you back here very soon.