The discomfort of being comfortable

Human nature is such that seemingly it is never satisfied yet it is satisfaction and fulfilment we seek. Granted, often in wrong places we look for things to make us feel ‘comfortable’. That is unconscious avoidance and most of the time we all have elements

of unconscious avoidance in our quest for comfort. We’ve all been there.

When awareness is applied eventually or finally, it seems we realise the degree of our discomfort and seek ways to become comfortable on what appears real way. Getting ‘comfortable’ in a conscious way links to doing what we love without applying any damage to ourselves or others. It’s got to benefit the overall life we lead. But what happens when we have done that?

I experienced it this year when I sat in a space of ‘I’ve done it’ what else is there? I slowly after a period of awareness of what true comfort is began to waver seeking way to disrupt that feeling, again consciously and unconscious elements started popping up. Dissociating from where I am, seeking tasks I haven’t really wanted to do and what it brought is a realisation of that human nature factor that we need a degree of discomfort to know we are comfortable. It is ebb and flow of life, ups and downs that are needed to know right from wrong and dark from light. The overarching lesson is acceptance of what is here and now and not seeking to escape purposefully into either comfort or discomfort and allowing whatever comes arrive at our door.

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Summer – the time for wilderness, the time for releasing your beast

Anger, physicality, sensate expression of instincts, body merging with the earth in its full expression – that’s what June is all about as we are building up to Litha. Swimming, walking barefoot, lying on mountain tops, communing with wildlife, beasts, bugs and plants alike are all the activities that feed the body and awake the soul.

There’s danger, however, when summer is fully alive in its wilderness. Night and day both carry life within and it can feel unsafe. This resonate with my overwhelm of the forest and feeling apprehensive about venturing out during the explosion of life in the land during summer. I tend to withdraw, hence I like the quietness and sleepiness of winter. It is safer. However, by withdrawing a part of me remains enclosed, hidden and that’s what needs to change this year.

Wild-self calls and roars pushing boundaries of a self-created seclusion. It needs expressing and breathing with the rhythms of the season.

A safe place for wild spirit for me is the Highlands of Scotland. There my wild-self is contented, it is allowed to be in its full majesty. It scares me always yet I thirst for it at the same time. There my whole aligns with the wild nature around me. I eagerly drink it into my cells, I merge with it like it is home and my spirit sours into endless skies daily and consumes my whole being with a sense of raw, complete, real and natural. It often manifests with anger, emotional cries and outward expression of raw things. It is unable to hide and sit still. It needs to run, fly, crawl and swim all at the same time. It can feel and look scary and crazy uncontainable and vicious, but it all makes sense and, perhaps, in embracing and allowing that for myself a bit more will also relax others in joining me and not being afraid of a strong bite and a loud screech that it often comes with.

Summer is truly a time for letting go and letting be. It is a time to fly higher and swimming further. Last summer I remember wanting to go on the water in a kayak and the fear that gripped me was so irrational yet it immobilized me. Someone said to me ‘go for it, we only live once, might as well’ and so I did. The freedom of releasing the urge to glide through vast waters released the excitement I had ever felt before. With each push across the lake I went further and further and with each minute I wanted to do more and more.

When I am faced with the mountains of the Highlands I can hear the scream within me telling me to run, scream, be in its fullest. The impulse in me to merge with the land is so strong that I know if I don’t I could easily just stagnate and die through my own fear and a loss of the potentially ecstatic experience. It is like choosing to drink poison and staying in a position of never knowing what it’s like to live fully. When I step on that mountain trail my heart and spirit sour, I want to run and cry and scream, the feeling I have of being as one with the land, a place I never want to leave for as long as I live.

I break my heart every time I have to leave the wilderness behind, because it means my wild-self has to go back into a safe enclosure of my other life, which is managed, contained and often unexciting.