Diving into Discomfort: Crafting a Resilient Life Beyond Quick Digital Fixes

Have you ever found yourself reaching for your phone just to avoid a moment of awkward silence or inner turmoil? You're not alone, but what if these moments of emotional discomfort are actually gateways to a more authentic and fulfilling life? Join me, Seth Lusk, your compass in the quest for well-being, as we journey through the murky waters of our own emotions. We'll confront the societal trend of numbing pain with quick technological fixes and reveal the detrimental effects this has on our collective psyche—from escalating aggression to a pervasive inability to cope with adversity.

This exploration isn't just about societal woes; it's an intimate invitation to become architects of our own lives. By stepping into the arena of discomfort with deliberate intent, we can dismantle the foundations of racism, homophobia, and sexism, crafting a legacy of courage and connection. We'll dissect the true meaning of resilience, and how by willingly facing rejection and learning from it, we lay the groundwork for a life that truly resonates with our deepest values and aspirations. Ready to swap the fleeting comfort of avoidance for the robust joy of engagement? Let's embark on this transformative odyssey together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You are listening to the Authentic Life Connection Podcast, episode number 172. Welcome to the Authentic Life Connection Podcast. I'm your host, seth Lusk. I'm a master certified life coach, author, personal trainer and nutrition specialist. For over a decade I've been helping people with their dreams and goals for their life and health.

Speaker 1: 0:26

I've spent many years watching people get frustrated with their journey in life and giving up on taking actions towards their goals, so I dug in deep to find answers to why so many of us face this same frustration and struggle in life. So in this podcast, we're going to dive in deep on topics surrounding what it means to consistently live a fulfilling and authentic life where you are unstoppable in taking action towards your dreams and goals. So the only question is are you ready to start living your most authentic and fulfilling life once and for all? Then let's get started, shall we? Hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. For those of you listening in for the first time, welcome, welcome.

Speaker 1: 1:13

You picked a great episode to join in on if it's your first time, and today we're going to talk about something that's a bit uncomfortable, and that's actually the topic. It's about staying in discomfort, and I want to make a case with you all today about why it is that I advocate for us to stop trying to numb out of our emotional pain, stop trying to escape our emotional pain, and in today's world, that's all too easy for us to do. Any time we're experiencing any amount of emotional discomfort or pain, we have a little device, usually in one of our hands or in a pocket or in a bag nearby or sitting on a you know, countertop table surface within arm's reach, and that's our smartphones. And these smartphones are very, very cleverly designed to provide us with constant little miniature hits of dopamine. Any time we're a little bit upset about something, we can hop on social media and scroll through some videos or read something and, you know, even voice our opinion about something and feel like we've made a difference, and all of these little ways that we can just receive these little, micro, mini doses of dopamine all day long. And it's becoming, I think, even more and more present and obvious for us to start seeing that this is creating a problem for us. And if it's not obvious for you to see, allow me to explain why I'm saying this is a problem for many of us. You see, for so many of us now, we are so used to having something that is available right there to relieve any sort of emotional discomfort that we're experiencing, whether that's food or television or Netflix, or the internet or our phone or, you know, something to drink or just whatever it is that we can buy that's always available 24 seven that we can or click something that you know provides us with that little dopamine rush to relieve any sort of emotional discomfort that we're experiencing.

Speaker 1: 3:11

And in a world where this is possible, it's becoming harder and harder to explain to people why emotional discomfort is important and also it's becoming very obvious that people's ability to tolerate any any amount of emotional discomfort is decreasing at an alarmingly rapid rate. I mean, me and a friend were actually talking about this just the other day. We were talking about the fact that when we look around at the world, it's just like everybody is so reactive and so they snap at the drop of a hat and start screaming at people and calling names and you know jumping down people's throats and everybody is just all about themselves and their opinions and you know telling people why they're wrong and stupid. And it's just, it's becoming so obvious that people are unable to tolerate any amount of emotional discomfort without either needing to run away from it, either into a phone or into a meal or into a glass of alcohol of some kind of sorts or whatever it is that the person does to numb out of their emotional pain, or they react to it by screaming, by yelling, by hitting, by doing whatever the person does to react to it, becoming snarky, sarcastic, diminishing a person, people, people are at in my lifetime and all time low in their ability to handle any sort of adversity emotional adversity, emotional discomfort and, to be honest, when you ask people they're kind of like, well, why should I? I shouldn't have to deal with that, I shouldn't have to do. And you know, that kind of makes sense when we live in a world where it's like the whole point that we're being taught is to just get to that point where we can afford to just ride off on that pleasure wave into the sunset and never experience anything uncomfortable ever again. We all think we're going to hit that pleasure jackpot, that amount of money where we're just going to be able to buy constant pleasure and never have to experience discomfort ever again. And even though that sounds ridiculous, as I'm saying it out loud, I think a lot of us subconsciously believe that's going to eventually happen and we're telling ourselves so many subconscious stories about how any amount of emotional discomfort is something we shouldn't have to experience. And, my friends, this gets dangerous. We see it in the world around us.

Speaker 1: 5:39

People are unable to tolerate any amount of emotional adversity without reacting to it in a very huge way, and you know, road rage, just all of these different ways People on the news blowing up buildings, going into their offices where they were fired and shooting everybody. Kids going into school because they were bullied and shooting all of the kids. And this is not me saying that bullying is okay, but, at the same time, the low levels of people being able to tolerate emotional discomfort and be able to move through emotional discomfort to a side of it in which we are able to experience it without it affecting us in a way where we do things that are like a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And again, this is not me saying that bullying isn't something that we need to pay attention to in school and that it hasn't gotten out of control. It has gotten out of control and a lot of this is because people cannot tolerate emotional discomfort, so they just bully everybody around them to try and you know, relieve their own emotional discomfort by watching someone else be in emotional discomfort. So today I want to talk to you all about the importance of emotional discomfort and the importance of learning to choose to stay in emotional discomfort even when you don't have to, even when there's something right there that could very easily take it away.

Speaker 1: 7:10

I hear this phrase being tossed around all the time life's too short, just enjoy it. And we use this to justify. You know going out and getting drunk when we had a bad day at work. Life's too short, just enjoy it. Go out and have fun, forget about your problems. You know having a big meal when we're trying to lose weight because we had a bad day. And life's too short, just enjoy it. This is too hard. You know, there's so much of this being thrown around about how life shouldn't be difficult, how life shouldn't be hard, and I get it. There are things in this life that we don't want to tolerate and we don't want to stay around. You know, we've solved for a lot of diseases. We've solved for famine for the most part, except for the fact that a lot of first world countries are causing famine in third world countries because we're overeating to indulge our emotional discomfort or trying to get rid of our emotional discomfort. That's kind of beside the point. There are things that we want to solve for poverty and you know, child hunger, homelessness things that we want to solve for we don't want to just be okay with them being in life. But then there are certain things, my friends emotional discomfort. We're not going to get rid of it and actually we don't want to.

Speaker 1: 8:28

I'm reading a book called Dopamine Nation and in this book the author talks about our pain, pleasure cycles in our brain and the importance of experiencing pain, physically and emotionally, and actually to the brain they're very much the same. And how, actually, for the human brain? The brain likes for our pain, pleasure to be balanced 50 50. And what's happening for so many of us is we're pushing on the pleasure side of that balance, so much so that the brain has to swing back and try and create emotional pain for us to balance it out in so many different ways. And the longer we keep trying to resist that and pushing on the pleasure side, the brain actually shifts the fulcrum for the pain-pleasure balance to make it more difficult for us to experience pleasure. Even with things that we normally find to be pleasurable, we have to have more and more and more of it to experience less and less amounts of pleasure. And this, my friends, is one of the biggest reasons why I tell you all it is important for us to experience our emotional discomfort, because, number one without it we don't experience pleasure. Number two without it we don't grow and learn. And number three without it we don't actually hear the stories going on in our head about what is important for us in life, that we want to learn from, that we want to do something about.

Speaker 1: 9:59

If we're constantly trying to run away from and numb out of our emotional pain, it is actually necessary for us to experience pain, physical and emotional. It is necessary, and our ability to tolerate it, our ability to be in it, our ability to process it, also increases and evolves our ability to really enjoy and fully experience pleasures in our life. And this is what I find to be so sad is everyone is out here trying to numb out of their emotional pain because they're like, oh, I want to enjoy life. But they're actually less and less able to enjoy life because they're so busy trying to numb out of 50% of their life that their brain isn't even allowing them to experience pleasure with the things that they want to experience pleasure with. They need more and more of it to experience less and less pleasure.

Speaker 1: 10:55

So, my friends, I want to, I want to bring this into your awareness today. I want to bring into your awareness the importance of recognizing our stories about life that are telling us to avoid emotional discomfort, to resist and to react to emotional discomfort, all for the idea of trying to get rid of it as fast as possible. And what I mean by that is when we get angry and we punch or scream, we're doing it because we think it gets rid of the thing outside there, which actually the thing causing the pain is actually inside of us anyways, but that's a story for another time. But when we react to pain, what we're actually trying to do is get rid of it as fast as possible. We're trying to get rid of the thing that we think is creating the pain, without realizing that we're the ones creating it, but also that it's necessary. It is necessary for us to experience that pain.

Speaker 1: 11:53

And what I want to advocate for is choosing those areas in life where there's a cause there, an authentic cause there, an authentic value that you want to bring more of into the world. And to do so, you will need to grow and learn how to express that value in bigger, bigger and bigger ways, to express it to larger and larger groups of people on a bigger and bigger scale, and learning to do so, you will encounter things that are uncomfortable, and when we go out into the world and when we choose those discomforts with authentic intention and we choose to be in them at more and more intense levels at longer and longer periods of time, what we are actually doing is building up our ability to not only express the things that are valuable to us that will later on bring us pleasure in life. We're also increasing our ability to enjoy those things in life when they are there. When the other side of the 50-50 swings back around, life is 50-50, but the bigger we make our life, the bigger the pain cycles we're going to go through and the bigger the pleasure cycles we're going to go through and the more we actually get to enjoy the balance of the two, without having this whole story of suffering about how the pain that is in our life shouldn't be there Because we chose it. We chose that pain with intention, because it is helping us to go deeper into understanding the things that we love about life, that are important for us in life, that we want to bring more of to life and, at the same time, when those things are present, we get to truly be present in them and enjoy them without having to resist that other 50% of life that we think shouldn't be there.

Speaker 1: 13:57

An example of this would be for me, hope is one of my biggest core values in life. I will advocate for hope with my last breath. And the deeper and deeper I go into understanding the value of hope in the world, the more I find larger, bigger, brighter ways to express hope in the world. When the other 50% comes around, the pain cycles are real. The pains that come along with hope are disappointment when you hope that something is going to really happen, and then it doesn't, and then choosing to hope anyways, and then it doesn't happen again, and then choosing to hope anyways and really being able to be present with the pain of disappointment, of let down, of being told no when you hoped for a yes, rejection, all of these things that are on the other side of the pain pleasure cycle of hope.

Speaker 1: 15:11

But every time I experience some rejection, every time I experience a no, every time I experience a result that I didn't anticipate, and I feel that let down, I feel that rejection, I feel that disappointment If I let myself be present in that disappointment. Be present in that feeling of rejection, be present in that let down instead of trying to drink it away, eat it away, television away, television it away. When I let myself truly be present in that emotional discomfort, what I end up feeling, finding on the other side, is a bigger story of hope and a bigger feeling of hope that comes along with it. Instead of running away from the disappointment and giving up because it feels too hard, I lean in more and I find more and more hope and I'm more and more able to enjoy it. Every time I walk through that emotional discomfort, advocating for hope and I hear this all the time and I get it Everyone's like oh, but that's too hard.

Speaker 1: 16:21

When it comes to weight loss, oh, but that's too hard. When it comes to taking care of our body's physical health, oh, but it's too hard to go out there and date and find someone that you truly want to spend your life with, that also wants to spend their life with you. And oh, but it's too hard to get out there and truly build the career that you want and advocate for the salary that you want and advocate for the job that you want and go through the education process and the certification processes to have the job, the career that you want. Oh, but it's too hard. Why would I do that when I could just do this and have this right here and go ahead and get this pleasure now? That's the message I keep getting from people when I'm telling them get out there and build the life you want, and all I hear back is, oh, but it's too difficult, it hurts too much. Yes.

Speaker 1: 17:09

Yes, it hurts, it's supposed to. And when we stop telling ourselves that that pain isn't supposed to be there and when we learn that this pain is part of the cycle of the 50, 50 of life, and when we lean into it and we really listen to our stories going on there and we learn to advocate for what's truly important for us and walk through the pain side of the pleasure and pain cycles instead of running away from them, resisting them and just making them come back even stronger. When we truly learn to be in that emotional discomfort without making it wrong.

Speaker 1: 17:48

And we come through on the other side. My friends said that's where we truly get to enjoy the life that we want. We get more and more capable of creating the life that we truly desire, of advocating for the things that are truly important for us and doing the actions that create more of those things in the world around us, because we strengthen our ability to walk through the discomfort in order to be able to create more of that. What I see happening for so many people is that they are shrinking their lives down further and further and further and chasing after little cheap pleasure hits, trying to avoid the discomfort of life, and the tiny bits of pleasure that they can't experience aren't even so enjoyable for them, and their ability to tolerate any amount of emotional discomfort is so Small that they are running away from 90% of life. They're not even able to enjoy life because they're scared of so much of it. They're scared of someone not liking them, they're scared of someone calling them a name, they're scared of someone saying something that sounds sexist or racist or home homophobic, and so they just hide from the world so they don't have to hear that because Lord forbid they experience some emotional discomfort about hearing Someone else have a different story about life than theirs and my friends. While I'm not trying to say that saying racist things or sexist things or homophobic things is okay, I'm not okay with it. At the same time, I'm not scared to get out there and be in it and hear it and hear people's stories about what they think of me and people like Me for being a homosexual. I'm not scared to be out there with my friends of all different races and hear the racist shit that people will say. I'm not afraid to experience that and be there with my friends in that pain and Find solutions for how we can solve for, for homophobia and racism and educating people that feel this way about the truth, about these people Also accepting that not everybody wants to be educated and they're still gonna have their opinions. But I don't have to make that about me and my friends. They don't have to make it about them. But this is where the rubber meets the road and this is where we get to create the lives that we want. We all say we want less racism, we want less homophobia, we want less sexism, we want less whatever in the world. But in order to do that, we have to get out there and create more of the things that we do want, and so many people don't even know what they want, and then, when they do see what they want, they're too afraid to do the uncomfortable things to create it. So we're all just hiding from life, chasing after cheap pleasure. And then when someone calls you out on it and asks you Step up, what I hear in return is why should I? Why should I have to do that when I could just do this over here? And what I want to advocate for for today is to help you start Seeing that this is not living life. This is not living life.

Speaker 1: 20:48

Hiding from what we're afraid of, hiding from what we are afraid that people might think about us, doesn't stop them from thinking it. Hiding from what we're afraid people are gonna say about us, all it does is make our own life smaller. Hiding from the emotional discomfort doesn't make your life more pleasurable or enjoyable. It just makes it smaller and smaller and smaller, until you're so unable to experience any amount of emotional discomfort that you can't do anything in your life that you want to do anymore. I see so many people spiraling down this whole of Hiding more and more from life, and I get it. I see that you guys feel tired. I see that you guys feel like you're hurting. What I'm asking for you to do is step up and say yes to that hurt, say yes to that discomfort, start advocating for what it is that you want. Start stepping into the rejections and the nose and learning from it Learning okay, that didn't get the message across.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Here's what I can do differently. Instead of stepping up to the plate to advocate for something in the first person who says no to you or you know it has an argument that you don't know how to Rebuttal or whatever you just backed out and you just decide I don't know, this is too painful, this is too hard. You go on 10 dates and get 10 noses and you decide, oh, this is too painful, this is too hard, I just give up on finding anybody. You go to 10 job interviews for the job that you truly want and you're like, oh, the nose are getting too painful. And you just accept a job that'll pay you a halfway decent salary and say, oh Well, this is, this is good enough. At least I'm not in the pain of getting the no anymore, and what I'm here to advocate for my friends, is stepping up to that discomfort, stepping up and asking for that rejection. Asking for that no, asking for that emotional discomfort and learning to be in it just a little bit longer.

Speaker 1: 22:42

That's where the true secret sauce to creating the life you want is, and and that's where also, you will create your ability to enjoy the pleasures of life when they come to you.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I don't know if you've noticed, but the more you chase after the little cheap hits on the phone, the longer you need to be on the phone to feel the same amount Of pleasure. It's not getting easier for your brain to feel pleasure. You're not even enjoying your life. You're hiding from it, and what I'm here to say today is for those of you out there living in that excuse of why should I do the uncomfortable thing when I could just enjoy my life now? I'm here to tell you you're not enjoying your life now. It's not even the life you want. And I'm here to tell you that the life that you truly desire is right on the other side of saying yes to that thing you're afraid of doing. Saying yes to that pain that you think you can't experience one more time, saying yes to staying in that emotional discomfort, instead of grabbing the whatever kind of food or drink that you're about to grab and go for when you told yourself you're not going to do it anymore, I'm here to advocate for pain, my friends.

Speaker 1: 23:55

That's what I'm here to advocate for and to tell you that the true key to enjoying life, really experiencing true enjoyment, joy and pleasure out of your life, comes when you learn to stop trying to numb out of, escape from and avoid the things that are uncomfortable for you.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Stop avoiding the nose, stop avoiding the rejection, stop avoiding what people might think about you because, my friends, when you get out there and you let the people that are going to think the things about you that you're afraid for them to think about you, you also allow for the people that are going to think the things about you that want you, want them to think about you, to truly see you and be able to think those things about you.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Life is going to be 50-50 either way. The question is how small do you want to make that life? I'm here for those of you who are brave enough to make it big, bold and loud and to go after what you truly want. And yes, it's going to be scary, yes, it's going to be uncomfortable, but I'm telling you, when that other 50% of life swings back around, that's when you learn what it means to truly enjoy the life that you advocated for, went after and created for yourself. So why should you experience discomfort when you could just reach for some comfort right now? Because the life that you truly desire is right on the other side of learning to just be, a little uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 25:22

That's all I've got for you guys. I love you all and until I see you again here next week ciao. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed the content of this podcast. If you did, please subscribe so that you're one of the first people to know when I release a new episode each week.

Speaker 1: 25:40

If you have any questions, or if you have interest in learning more about the coaching that I do with my clients one-on-one, then just head over to my website at wwwlifecoachsethcom. That's wwwlifecoachsethcom. There you're going to have the ability to reach out to me for questions that you might have or to book your free discovery call with me to discuss what one-on-one coaching with me might be like for you. You can also check out and order your copy of my book to get a taste of what I'm all about as a person and as a coach. I'm so happy that you joined us today and I hope to have you here again next week. So until then, let authenticity be the guide to your most unstoppable and fulfilling journey of life.