The Freedom in Feeling: Learning to Sit with Discomfort

If there’s one coping skill I could wish upon all my clients, it would be this: the ability to sit with and tolerate discomfort.

Not to make it go away. Not to fix it. Just to be with it.

I know, it doesn’t sound like a very appealing skill. Most of us don't willing want to sit with anxiety, sadness, shame, fear... In fact, most of us have spent a lifetime learning how to avoid those feelings, push them down, distract away, or escape them altogether. But what I see time and time again in my therapy practice is this: our attempts to avoid discomfort often creates more suffering than the feeling itself.

Discomfort is Not the Enemy

We live in a culture that values comfort, control, and constant happiness. We’re taught to seek relief the moment something feels off - scroll your phone, pour a glass of wine, stay busy, get away. And while all of those strategies work in the short term, they rarely offer the deeper relief we're longing for. Why? Because at the end of the day, the discomfort is still there. It may come back stronger. Or sneak out sideways in the form of irritability, burnout, anxiety, or disconnect from the people we love.

So instead, what if the goal wasn’t to get rid of discomfort, but to build a relationship with it?

Making Space for What’s Hard

Tolerating the discomfort of *insert any painful emotion here* - isn’t easy. But it is something you can learn. With time and practice, it becomes more natural, more accessible. And with that capacity comes real freedom: the freedom to stay present, to feel without shutting down, and to remain connected to yourself even when things feel hard.

Instead you can stay. You can breath and listen. You can choose to response versus react.

What “Sitting with Discomfort” Actually Looks Like

Let's be real - it’s not always a pretty process. Sometimes sitting with discomfort means crying on the couch while you resist the urge to text someone you shouldn’t. Sometimes it means noticing your racing thoughts and reminding yourself: I’m safe, even if this is hard.

It can look like:

• Taking deep, intentional breaths instead of snapping at your partner.

• Naming and owning what you feel: “I’m overwhelmed.” “I’m hurt.” “I’m scared.”

• Putting a hand on your chest and saying, “This is hard, and I’m doing my best.”

• Letting yourself rest instead of powering through.

• It’s not about perfection. It’s about presence.

Why This Skill Matters in Therapy (and Life)

In therapy, we often focus on emotional regulation, self-awareness, and building healthy coping tools. But none of those strategies really take root until we’re able to slow down and allow ourselves to feel. That’s why learning to sit with discomfort is so foundational—it creates the conditions for real change. When we stop reacting out of fear or urgency, we begin to understand ourselves more deeply. We start to recognize old patterns and choose new ones. We make decisions based on our values rather than our anxiety.

And here’s the real cherry on top: over time, this practice builds something powerful - trust in yourself. Something far too many of us lose along the way. A quiet inner knowing that says, I can handle hard things. I don’t have to run. From that place, healing becomes not just possible, but sustainable.

Final Thoughts

If you’re someone who’s spent years trying not to feel - I want you to know, I get it. That wasn’t weakness. That was survival. You did what you had to do to make it through, to keep going, to stay afloat in moments that felt too overwhelming or too painful to hold.

But maybe now we can ask: Can I stop running? Maybe now, you're ready to feel more connected to yourself - to stop living on autopilot and start responding to life with more intention, more presence, and less fear. Maybe you're ready to try something new.

Learning to sit with discomfort doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. Therapy offers a space to explore this work with support, compassion, and care - at your own pace, in your own way. If you’re curious about what that might look like for you, I’d be honored to walk alongside you.

Sit with Discomfort • Emotional Resilience • Trust Yourself • Healing Over Avoidance • Presence Not Panic • Strength in Vulnerability