Hello and welcome back to practicing human the podcast where every day we're

getting a little better at life. I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's

episode we're going to talk about reframing discomfort. More to come on that in

a moment. First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

So I'm going to start this episode by reading an excerpt from the book, When

Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. And she says, generally speaking, we regard

discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual

warriors, people who have a certain hunger to know what is true, feelings like

disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear,

instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where

it is that we're holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel

we'd rather collapse and back away. They're like messengers that show us with

terrifying clarity exactly where we're stuck. This very moment is the perfect

teacher and lucky for us. It's with us wherever we are. Most of us do not take

these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We

are used to all kinds of escaping. All addictions stem from this moment when we

meet our edge and we just can't stand it. There are so many ways that have been

dreamed up to entertain us away from the moment. So a lot here. I think what I

particularly like about this excerpt and why I wanted to bring it into you is this

idea of looking at these moments that we might typically turn away from or

cast into the category of bad news as instead opportunities. There's something

to lean into and even as a children says something that we can perk up

...