02 Aug Embracing Discomfort: The Surprising Path to a Meaningful Life
Although I write and talk a lot about happiness, what I’m really interested in is what positive psychologists call thriving and flourishing.
This is about living a good life, our best lives, which includes positive emotions like happiness but also, much more.
In addition to happiness, flourishing also requires engaging fully with life, meaning and purpose, positive relationships and accomplishment.
So happiness is a good thing, but it shouldn’t be the only thing.
If you’d like to learn more about meaning and purpose, even (or especially) during difficult times, then read on …
via Mindful by Diana Hill
There are a lot of paradoxes in psychology—the harder you try to fall asleep, the less likely you will; the more you try to avoid thinking negative thoughts, the more likely they will pop into your head; and according to newer research, your greatest meaning in life can come from your greatest pains.
As a clinical psychologist specializing in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), I’ve spent many therapy hours straddling the spaces of pain and meaning. As Steven Hayes, founder of ACT, shared with me on Your Life in Process Podcast, “You hurt where you care.”
Let’s try an experiment to illustrate this coupling. Consider the following activities: Go through the list below, mentally check off those that are both uncomfortable and meaningful.
- Saying no to people, projects, and activities when your plate is full
- Resolving a conflict with a family member
- Listening with an open mind to someone who has a different political view than yours
- Waking up early to move your body, even when you are exhausted and it’s dark outside
- Completing a challenging workout, race, or other physical task
- Visiting a loved one in the hospital
- Staying at an event when you feel socially anxious
- Turning down a drink, food, or other substance at a social event when you know you have had enough
- Traveling with young kids
- Asking for time off from work to care for your mental health
Which activities did you check? What else would you add? Where else in your life do you do difficult things that are also important to you? If you value caring for your body, you’ll need to face the discomfort of physical activity, and if you value self-respect you’ll need to say no even if it disappoints others.
A meaningful life is not a pain-free life
The more you engage in meaningful activities, the more likely you are to experience discomfort. If you love someone or something, you might know this by now. Not only is discomfort associated with purposeful activities like parenting, service work, owning a pet, and social justice, but experiencing pain can be pleasurable in its own right.
For example, hot yoga, deep tissue massage, eating spicy food, and running long distances can be enjoyable because, according to Paul Bloom, author of The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, they create contrast, provide a break from self-rumination, and socially signal strength and competence.
Pain may also play an important role in our dopamine balance. Anne Lembke, the author of Dopamine Nation and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, shared with me that when we hyperstimulate pleasure centers of the brain with dopamine, we end up experiencing more dysphoria.
Our brain seeks homeostasis by upping our pain to balance out too much pleasure. Taking a “dopamine detox” and residing more on the pain side of the equation paradoxically resets our brain to experience pleasure more fully…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE