Turn Toward Discomfort

One of the metaphors I like to share with my clients is a concept I picked up from a book by Jeffery Kottler. The idea is that when we experience uncomfortable internal feelings or sensations, the tendency is to turn away from the experience—the body feels restless and thoughts say, “move—go—get out of here quickly!” Typically, self-medicating stuff might happen to support the escape.

So I like to compare this experience to driving on ice or snow. If you are a proper New Englander, you know that when the tail of your car skids to the right—you must turn the wheel gently to the right to straighten your wagon. However, if you are a novice at driving in the snow or ice, the tendency is to turn the car away from the direction of the skid.

Think about that instant feeling in your body when you realize your car is skidding…and how easy it is to imagine turning away from that sensation. And if we do that, our car does a 360 across several lanes of traffic (which for this example is similar to a relapse). So the goal is to notice uncomfortable or scary sensations in the body, and instead of following an instinct to quickly turn away, you turn towards it. We just straighten our wagon—not to run after it, or tackle it, but to just look. This is an example of witnessing that all of us can afford to improve.

#movementmindfulnessmedicine