Where Discomfort Is Asking You to Listen
The space between who you were and who you're becoming
Recently, I unexpectedly found myself facing the final closure of a role that had been an important part of my life for quite some time. In many ways I knew it was coming, and perhaps part of me had already begun moving towards something new, but knowing that a change is likely to happen is very different from experiencing the finality of the door actually closing. There was still a sense of shock, and I was interested to notice how quickly some of my old familiar fears began to surface. Almost immediately there were those what if? thoughts. What if things don't work out? What if I've made the wrong choices? What if I should be doing something safer or more predictable?
What I noticed, though, was that this wasn't just happening in my mind. My body was responding too. Uncertainty had activated something familiar in my nervous system and, for a while, I could feel myself being drawn back towards an old state. There was a temptation to pull everything in, to reduce rather than expand, and perhaps to return to a smaller version of myself because that version felt known and therefore safe. This fascinated me because, underneath the fear, I still knew that I didn't actually want to go backwards.
In my therapy work, I often work with the idea that there are different parts of us, and that even the parts which appear fearful, resistant or critical are usually trying to help us in some way. A protective part may have learnt a long time ago that uncertainty means danger, or that taking a risk leaves us vulnerable, and so when something happens in the present that resembles that old experience, it steps forward and begins doing the job it knows how to do. I don't think the answer is to silence that voice or tell ourselves that we shouldn't be afraid. It is much more helpful to become curious about it, to acknowledge what it is trying to do and, in a sense, to say, I hear you. I understand why you're here, and thank you for trying to protect me.
There is something very different, however, between listening to a fearful part of ourselves and allowing it to make our decisions. We can hear it, acknowledge it and perhaps even feel grateful for the ways it has protected us in the past, while also recognising that we don't necessarily need that same protection now. For me, this is where discernment becomes important, particularly during times of change. Is the feeling I am experiencing an intuitive sense that something genuinely isn't right, or is it an old protective response to something that simply isn't familiar? Those two things can feel remarkably similar when we are in the middle of them.
It made me think about how uncomfortable we have become with discomfort itself. We live in a world where there is almost always something available to take a feeling away. We can pick up our phones, scroll, shop, eat, drink, work, ask somebody else's opinion or find some other way of filling the space. Even within the world of wellbeing, there can sometimes be an underlying message that every uncomfortable state needs to be regulated away...that emotional health means returning ourselves to calm as quickly as possible.
But I'm not sure that it does.
Sometimes discomfort is, of course, telling us something important. If we are repeatedly unhappy in a situation, if a relationship is hurting us, if our work is making us miserable or something feels persistently wrong, then those feelings deserve our attention and may well require action. Sitting with our feelings shouldn't become another way of tolerating something that genuinely needs to change. At other times, though, discomfort isn't a warning that we are going in the wrong direction. It may simply be part of moving beyond what we know. Grief feels painful because we have loved. Uncertainty often accompanies change. Fear can arise when we step beyond the familiar, and restlessness can sometimes be the first indication that a part of us is ready to grow.
Perhaps this is why periods of transition can feel so unsettling. There is a space between who we have been and who we are becoming where the old identity no longer quite fits, but the new one hasn't fully formed. We don't have the certainty of what was, but neither can we clearly see what is coming next, and the nervous system can interpret that lack of certainty as something to be wary of. It may encourage us to retreat towards the familiar, even when the familiar is exactly what we have been trying to move beyond.
This is where sound has become such an important practice for me, because I don't only see sound healing as a way of changing how we feel. Sound can certainly soothe us, help us regulate and bring us into a different state, but it can also create a space in which we are able to listen more deeply to what is already there. Sometimes the intention isn't to use sound to take the discomfort away, but to create enough safety around it that we can stay with it for a little longer.
I love the simple practice of sitting with a singing bowl, sounding it once and then following the sound. There is the initial tone, the harmonics around it and the vibration that can be felt through the body, but eventually the sound begins to fade. Instead of immediately striking the bowl again, we can allow it to become quieter and quieter until we can no longer hear it, and then remain for a while in the silence that follows. I find that space particularly interesting because the sound hasn't given us an answer. It has simply helped us become still enough to notice what might have been difficult to hear amongst all the noise.
Of course, that kind of listening can feel scary too. What if, when we become quiet, we hear something we're not quite ready to hear? Beneath our immediate thoughts there can be so many other voices: family expectations, cultural conditioning, things we learnt as children, ideas about who we should be and old versions of ourselves that once kept us safe. Somewhere amongst all of those voices there may also be a quieter knowing that we have outgrown something, that we want something different, that we need to become more visible or that the answer we keep asking other people to give us is one we already know.
As I go forward, I realise that learning to listen isn't about assuming that every thought or feeling is profound or that we should act on everything that arises. It is about learning to recognise which part of us is speaking and becoming interested in what it has to say. When an uncomfortable feeling arises, rather than immediately asking How do I get rid of this?, we might ask What is this trying to show me? Where do I feel it in my body? What happened just before it appeared? What is this part of me afraid might happen? Perhaps one of the most useful questions is simply: Does this feeling need action, attention or time?
We can explore this through our own voice too. After sitting in the silence, we might allow a hum, a sigh or a simple vowel sound to emerge without worrying about whether it sounds beautiful. We might even ask, If this feeling had a sound, what would it sound like? There can be something deeply freeing about allowing an emotion to be expressed through sound without immediately needing to explain it, analyse it or turn it into a story. Sometimes the body needs the opportunity to express something before the mind needs to understand it. I don't think I am always good at this and in someways in our modern, analytical world I think we have worked hard to train ourselves not to do this !
So my recent experience has reminded me that nervous system regulation isn't about expecting me to remain calm and centred all the time. Perhaps it is more about noticing when we have moved into an old, familiar state and developing enough awareness to recognise that we don't have to make our next decision from there. We can listen to the fearful part, understand what it is trying to protect us from and give it the reassurance it may need, without automatically allowing it to lead us back towards what feels safe simply because it is familiar.
There is something powerful about allowing an old fear to be present without assuming it has something to say about our future. Sometimes the discomfort we feel is not a sign that we are on the wrong path at all; it is simply what happens when we step beyond the edges of what we have known.
I think of it a little like the resonance of a singing bowl. If we continually strike the bowl before the previous sound has faded, we never experience the silence between the sounds. Yet there can be something deeply revealing in that silence. We don't have to fill it, fix it or know immediately what comes next. We can simply allow ourselves to be there and listen.
A simple sound and listening practice
If you find yourself in one of these moments, rather than immediately trying to find an answer, you might give yourself ten quiet minutes and try this:
Arrive. Sit comfortably with a singing bowl if you have one, or simply use your own voice. Take a moment to notice your body and what is present without trying to change it.
Sound and listen. Strike the bowl once and follow the sound and vibration until it completely disappears. If you don't have a bowl, gently hum or tone an oo or ah, feeling the vibration within your body.
Stay with the silence. Resist the urge to immediately make another sound. Notice what arises in the space afterwards: thoughts, sensations, emotions, memories or perhaps nothing at all.
Get curious. Ask yourself, Where do I feel this in my body? What is this part of me afraid of? What is it trying to protect me from? Does this feeling need action, attention or simply time?
Let your voice respond. If it feels right, allow a hum, sigh or spontaneous tone to emerge. You might ask, If this feeling had a sound, what would it sound like? There is no need for it to sound beautiful or even make sense.
Listen again. Sit quietly for another minute or two before deciding what, if anything, you need to do. You may receive an insight, or you may not. The practice isn't about forcing an answer; it's about creating the space in which one can eventually be heard.
Perhaps that is one of the gifts sound can offer us. Not another way to escape an uncomfortable feeling, but a way of creating enough space around it that we can hear what is really there.
Because sometimes discomfort isn't telling us that we're on the wrong path. Sometimes it is simply what it feels like to stand in the space between who we were and who we are becoming, and to stay there long enough to hear what wants to emerge next. And that nearly always leads us to places that are much more aligned and fulfilling!
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