“Sit with the Discomfort,” They say

I bet you hear this a lot: “You need to sit with the discomfort.”
Hell, I’m even guilty of overusing this phrase. But the truth is, I don’t think I ever truly did, or even fully understood what it meant.

After participating in therapy sessions for a while, I think I finally get it. My amazing therapist notes that, although I’m a big fan of words, I don’t always respect them. I use flat words to describe my struggles and downplay them, as if they’re one-dimensional and uncomplicated. That distance keeps me from the real resolution and from freedom. Because whenever she looks at me and simply asks, “What is the problem here?” my mind turns completely blank. I can’t find a single word. And that silence, that stuckness, is the discomfort.

Sitting with the discomfort asks me to actually wait, take a deep breath, and search for a more honest answer. I think that’s what it really means: not rushing to cover it with quick answers or empty words, but allowing myself to stay in the blank space, the not-knowing. Because noticing these moments shows me there’s something deeper underneath, something I don’t want to touch. The silence, the struggle to name it, that’s the doorway.

I still don’t know what to do after that, or how to actually find the answers (that’s partly what therapy is for 😅). But perhaps the fact that I finally understand what it means to “sit with it,” and learning to stay open and curious with this uncomfortable pause, is already a start. This is where the real work begins. And as with every beginning, I don’t need to rush into solving it right away. I want to proceed gently and let it be what it is: a beginning.