March 4, 2025 • 36 mins
Episode 58: Leaning into Discomfort
In this episode, the speaker explores the concept of leaning into discomfort and discusses their personal experiences with overcoming social anxiety, self-hate, and finding purpose. The speaker uses examples from their teenage years and adult life to illustrate how facing discomfort can lead to personal growth and fulfillment.
Introduction
The Nature of Discomfort
Personal Struggles
Transformative Moments
Adopting New Practices
Helping Others
Revisiting Old Habits
Turning Points
Finding Purpose
Conclusion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
the benefits of leaning into discomfort.
I, I've found that it's kind of humannature to kind of avoid discomfort.
You know, if things gettough, we tend to move away.
(00:24):
We find a way to distract.
We lean towards something, you know,food, something to numb the senses.
Even sometimes people will lean moreinto pursuits that Look on the outside as
(00:50):
healthy, but on the inside when they'reoverdone, they're not quite as healthy.
The Buddhists talk about
craving and aversion
and they say that both cause suffering.
(01:14):
So always moving towards somethingthat you're craving or that you
want or some kind of a pleasure
always like focusing on that andthen the aversion to discomfort and
the moving away and the Literallytrying to distract yourself from
(01:37):
what's going on inside or what you'refeeling or what you're thinking
You know, you see it a lot with
people are so focused on Basicallytheir phone and social media
and a lot of time grasping at thesethings to try to find a sense of value
(02:07):
and it's really interesting because Youcan numb yourself to a lot of things
That's not going to make them better.
And I'm not saying that to thepeople who are really well adjusted
and, and two feet on the groundand they don't have any issues.
(02:28):
No anxiety, no worry, no fear.
That's not who I'm talking to really.
Who I'm talking to are peoplelike myself for so many years.
Who,
when I was younger, yeah, I,I didn't really like myself.
(02:51):
I didn't see any real value in who I was.
And in fact, much even worse thanthat, I really did not like myself.
I hated myself, was embarrassed.
I would try to hide, spent so manyyears trying to hide, trying to
disappear, not wanting to stand outbecause it seemed like anytime I had
(03:17):
to stand out, you know, somebody wouldlaugh and I'd be so embarrassed and.
You know, that inner dialogue wouldsay, yeah, you idiot, you loser.
That was stupid.
That was stupid.
That was stupid.
And that inner dialoguefor me was really loud.
Um, at times it was so loud it came out,you know, uh, sometimes we have these
(03:42):
negative thoughts and they get louderand louder and louder till they come out.
And I spent a lot of yearstrying to find different ways
to distract myself from that.
At one point it was, itwas a kind of a self harm.
(04:03):
Not exactly trying to end my life at thatpoint, but more like punching things,
not people, because, I don't know, Ialways had a big heart, I was always
a gentle giant, I didn't want to hurtanybody, and if I did, I would feel
absolutely horrible, so I would punchthings, which really wasn't that great,
(04:30):
but sometimes it like, it quieted theinner voice, the inner calm, you know,
the, that conflict going on inside,inside your head, Or at least in mine.
And the funny thing is, it got soloud at one point that, you know,
(04:54):
I couldn't even be around people.
Because I couldn't evenarticulate, really talk to people.
Because I felt so negativeabout who I was in the time.
And I realized that thisis just no way to live.
(05:15):
Just avoiding and avoidingand avoiding everything.
Avoiding people, avoiding conversations.
Avoiding answering aquestion when I was in class.
Avoiding speaking in front of people.
Avoiding meeting new people.
(05:37):
Yeah, and even though I wanted tohave somebody special in my life,
I had such a negative self image that Ididn't believe anybody would be interested
in me or what I had to say or who I was.
So, I avoided that too.
And that went on for a really long time,
(06:02):
but at one point I realized that,
you know, I wish I, I really wishI would have heard this quote when
I was, when I was in my teen years.
Cause that was thetoughest, toughest part.
And I heard this quoterecently and it was like, fear
(06:24):
is a mile wide and you can imaginelike looking over at a mile of fear.
But what you don't know,it's only an inch deep.
So when you step into it, yourealize there's a long way
from this shore to that shore.
(06:47):
But the depth is veryshallow and manageable.
But before you step into it,
it seems overwhelming.
It's funny.
There's so many illusionslike that in this world.
So
(07:09):
back when I was a teenager I realizedthat if I don't overcome this paralyzing
social anxiety and fear that I have,that this would be the rest of my life.
Not having anybody in my life,not connecting with anybody.
And I honestly think there was a partof me that wanted to drive me down
(07:31):
so deep, so deep into depression thatmaybe I could not be here anymore.
I could find a way to not be here anymore.
Because the truth of life atthat point was I really felt
like the pain of being here
(07:54):
was so much greater thanthe pain of me leaving.
Honestly now I have a totally different,totally different take on this.
It's like, um, Yeah, the pain ofleaving is insurmountable compared
(08:17):
to the pain of being here right now.
And that doesn't mean I'm afraidof dying, as per se, but I am.
I've got so much I feel thatI need to do in this life.
Like
I want to keep on working on this podcastand getting my message out and clarifying
(08:41):
it and articulating it, and to thepoint that it comes free, free flowing.
I want to.
I want to know that even when I'm sleeping
that somebody's benefiting fromsomething I've created that I've,
that I put out there in the world,that I'm making a difference.
(09:04):
Like, that's my highestmotivator right now.
Like, I love my job.
I love making a difference, supportingthese human beings when they're
having tough times, supportingthem through the good times.
Absolutely love all this.
I do want more.
(09:26):
Like, I'm not satisfied.
So like I was saying, so in myteen years, I realized that,
that I was pushing myselfso far into this corner
that there might not be a way to come out.
(09:49):
It's kind of like, uh, I spent a fewyears up north and I'd work in camp,
and one time I worked in a camp for,you know, four, five, six months almost.
And when I came back to thelittle, uh, little, you know,
little city, Fort St. John,
(10:09):
and I went to the grocery store.
And I was completely paranoid.
There's people everywhere, andnoise, and it was just too much.
So I just loaded up on groceries, andI went back to the place I was staying,
and I stayed there for four days.
You know, when I was a teenager, I couldsee that if I don't do something about
(10:33):
this absolute fear of standing out, thisfear of pushing past all this stuff, like,
leaning into the discomfort I was feeling,
I would end up In my greatestfear would be, you know, my
(10:58):
dying days, absolutely alone.
Nobody in my life.
So, I thought about it, like, how,how, how can you break free when
you're feeling something like this?
And I thought, well,
I'm afraid of being embarrassed,but I don't typically do too much.
(11:20):
So, I thought, what if I microdosed embarrassment, right?
So I got involved in a, in a youth group,and In order to feel what it felt like to
be embarrassed, I would do little things.
And it doesn't sound very big,but you know, at 16, 17, you don't
(11:42):
want to stand out too much, right?
Because typically somebody's goingto point it out or make fun of you.
The more in the backgroundyou are, the better.
And it seemed like the people whowere in the foreground were the
people who were picking on otherpeople to distract people from paying
attention to them in any other way.
(12:04):
So, I mean, I started with simplethings like I had these fluorescent
orange and, and, uh, red socks.
So I'd mismatch them and wear them.
And people would laugh,you got the wrong socks.
I'm like, yeah, I did it on purpose.
Then I feel, you know, my facewould go red, but it wouldn't last
a long time and it would get better.
(12:25):
And I get involved with things.
And sometimes I'd sing out loud justto see the reaction and bit by bit, I
kind of leaned into the discomfort, andI learned that the discomfort wasn't
as big of a deal, you know, it's like,like I said that quote, like, fear
(12:47):
is a mile wide and an inch deep, andI imagine that almost embarrassment
is, is quite similar at that age.
It looks overwhelming, butit's shallow and short lived.
I learned that people are goingto spend about 11 seconds thinking
(13:08):
about you and what you did.
And then they're going to goback to thinking themselves.
So like, your impact you're goingto have on people normally, like
if you do something embarrassing,is going to be pretty short lived.
And then, as I was moving throughlife, trying to like, find different
(13:29):
ways, I got involved with some selfhelp work, and started volunteering.
Like my job was to stand atthe door, and I'd just start
up conversations with people.
And this is when I learned that,Actually really paying attention
(13:54):
to what's going on around you andbeing in the right place in the right
moment and Starting a conversationcan have a pretty powerful effect.
I remember I was Standing at the doorand there was this young girl young
woman and she just seemed reallyanxious and I'm like, hey, are you okay?
(14:21):
And she's yeah, I'm just really nervous.
I'm like Do you want to talk about it?
I'm right here.
I'm just gonna be standing at thedoor and she said, she says like I ran
away from home four years ago and I'vecome to this course and they, they say
you, they want me to, they're, they'rechallenging me to reach out to somebody
(14:45):
who I haven't reached out for a long time
and I, I really want to call my homecause I ran away like four years ago,
but I'm so scared.
I'm like, stand beside me and,uh, and I'll be right here.
(15:10):
And she dialed the phone,
and someone answered, and shestarted talking, and she was
crying, and they were crying, and
And she just walked away to, like,complete the conversation in about ten
(15:31):
minutes, and then she came back, andshe said thank you, and she hugged me.
She said, I just talked to my littlebrother, who I haven't talked to in four
years, and he said, I was so afraid,I would never hear from you again.
And I wasn't that guy that would noticeor interfere in somebody's life like that.
(15:55):
But my job was to stand atthe door and talk to people.
And I saw somebody in discomfortand normally I would have walked
away and not paid attention.
But
I pushed through my own discomfort.
I like forcing my way into their life.
(16:16):
And the result was pretty good.
You know, it's, it's also interesting.
So discomfort comes ina lot of ways, right?
Like,
like earlier this year, I wasgetting back into running.
(16:37):
Um, yeah, it was like, I'd slowly movedaway from running and my eating habits
got really poor and I was under a lotof stress because of some stuff that
happened, which, yeah, it just reallyhit me hard, helped me realize that.
Some of the direction I was movingwasn't gonna, doesn't look like
(17:00):
it was going to work out anymore.
And I was so sad about this partof my life that seemed to be
disappearing that I love so much
that, yeah, I stoppedtaking care of myself.
Really?
I was just existing.
(17:20):
I was staying up later.
I was eating crap food.
I wasn't exercising.
I wasn't thinking positive.
I wasn't creating anything.
I wasn't leaning into my hobbies.
I was just existing and thensomething significant happened and
(17:50):
I just sat with it
and I realized I had to do something.
So I got in touch with a counselor Iused to work with and booked in some
sessions and we started like facingsome really uncomfortable things.
(18:12):
And then it's interesting whenyou start off with, when you start
off back to exercise at first,
there's a lot of discomfort.
You know, I work 12 hoursa day, six days a week.
So getting up an extra halfan hour early is pretty hard.
And when the weather's crappy,that doesn't make it easier.
(18:37):
And then on top of that, one just feelslike hell, like running feels bad,
like can't breathe.
It's just, it justeverything about it sucks.
But I realized one thing that theonly way to get from where I was
(19:01):
in that moment to where I wanted tobe was to lean into the discomfort
and to push into the discomfort.
and keep on pushing overand over and over again.
(19:22):
And it's funny.
At first it was about discipline.
It's like, I said, I'm going to do it.
I'll do it.
And sometimes I failed.
I just acknowledged I failed andI got back up and I did it again.
And then it's interesting.
You started discipline.
And then after doing consistentlyfor long enough, now you're,
(19:45):
you're working towards a habit.
Then I had to run that.
Didn't completely suck.
I'm like, Hmm.
And then over time got back toruns that started to feel good.
I started to feel better.
(20:07):
My head started to clear.
I guess I should really add thatat that point when I went to see my
counselor, I also went to see my doctorcause I really wasn't feeling well
and it turned out my blood pressurewas absolutely through the roof.
It was like one 70 over 97.
Which, um, and the doctor said
(20:31):
at this point you have a 28percent chance of having a heart
attack in the next five years.
And it's interestingbecause I've seen people
get a declaration like that
(20:52):
and it doesn't wake them up andthey stay in their distraction
and they keep on eating crapand they don't change anything.
And I wonder,
like avoiding discomfort,is it really worth it?
(21:18):
Not for me though, becauselike I realized that
I got a purpose here.
I got people that count on me,
like, I'm here to help.
And if I'm not taking care of myself,how the hell can I help anyone?
(21:42):
So I got really present to what was goingto happen if I didn't take care of myself.
I really leaned hard into that discomfort.
And you know, a few years ago Iwent to a Tony Robbins seminar.
And he said something that really,really nailed it really well for me.
I don't know if it nails it foreverybody, but it nailed it for me.
(22:05):
And that was the fact, and it's a fact,
that human beings willdo more to avoid pain
than they will to seek pleasure.
And that made sense, right?
(22:26):
I'm not taking care of myself, I'mdistracting myself, I don't wanna,
I don't wanna think about all thisstuff, and then I get it in the face.
And he said, the trickhere, the real trick here.
Is if you really want to change something,you got to build up the amount of pain,
(22:51):
overwhelming pain, to staying the same.
And you got to lean into thatpain, and really see what it
look like, if you don't change.
Like you really live there, youdon't distract, you pay attention,
you wake up in that pain.
And I sat there and going like,yeah, next five years, heart attack,
(23:13):
not ever able to help anybody else,gaining more weight, maybe die.
And I thought about like, Dr. Wayne Dyerwhen he was writing his first book and he
wrote himself a, a letter, this massiveletter and he's, but the most important
(23:35):
thing he said, he said, don't die.
He said, don't die withyour music still in you.
And I got really present to me,leaving this earth without leaving
anything behind, nothing, not a word.
(23:56):
And I leaned so hardinto that pain that it.
It motivated me to start gettingup again, to start working again,
and it was hard at first.
I had to work on discipline.
Discipline was most important.
(24:20):
Over time, it got easier.
You know, now, like today, I ran 11k.
I did injure my hip, uh,running a 10k in November.
And, so I'm running slow.
And it's funny, running slowused to be so aggravating to me.
(24:40):
It's funny.
Uh, I'm willing to breathe sohard that I'm just about dying,
but I'm not willing to lean intothe discomfort of running really,
really slow so I'm not dying.
I mean, take what you want fromthat, but it's really interesting.
(25:02):
It's
really interesting.
So what I learned fromVipassana meditation, Buddhist
meditation, was the fact that
all your suffering comes from craving.
Craving certain thingsand leaning into those
(25:28):
and having aversion to beingwith painful sensations or strong
sensations or the sensations.
And in Vipassana they teach you,they're teaching equanimity.
You're building equanimity.
And you would sit foran hour without moving.
And you can imagine how much,how many pains and itches and
(25:51):
things come up in your body.
But you're just sittingthere and you're breathing.
You're sitting there breathing andyou're you're watching your thoughts
and when you get stuck on a thoughtyou just go back to the breath you
sit and breathe and the sensationarises in your body and you breathe
and you sit with that sensation andIt's not even you don't acknowledge it.
(26:15):
You don't deny it you just sitwith it and you breathe and I
had a couple experiences where
Where it was actually a thought itwasn't a sensation, but I knew that
thought I was so familiar And it was onething that devastated me so many times
in my life and it's sitting in frontof me And I'm just sitting with it.
(26:38):
I'm like, oh no not here And I rememberhearing in the back of my mind the
teacher says don't react go back tothe breath And I kept on doing that
and suddenly it just popped and itdisappeared and it disappeared so strongly
But I don't remember what it was And Ihad this incredible feeling of freedom.
(27:05):
That's what they say.
It's like, it's liberation.
When one of these things thatare stuck in you dissipates.
And the only way you can getthere is by sitting with it.
You probably heard me say this before.
Resistance causes persistence.
(27:28):
If you're resisting,
if you're resisting discomfort,the discomfort will persist.
It'll keep on going.
You're just resistingbeing with it, right?
You're resisting accepting it.
You're fight, fight, fight.
You know, fighting, it'sinteresting, fighting just gives
(27:51):
energy to what you're resisting.
But when you can find a way to just acceptit, sit with it, be with it, lean into it,
acceptance causes disappearance.
And it's crazy, like, I've seen thisin my life where I accept something
(28:13):
just as it is, and it's even somethingthat before then I could not accept.
And when I truly accept it, not settle forit, but accept it just as it is, just as
it's not, and allow it to be there for therest of my life, and I'm fine with that.
(28:33):
One or two incredible things happen.
One, of course, if you're actuallyin true acceptance of something,
it disappears as a problem.
It's no longer a problembecause you've accepted it.
But the crazier thing is sometimes it justdisappears completely, almost magically.
(28:55):
I've heard, I've heard elite runners say,
That the difference between the top peopleand the people who don't quite make it
is this ability to be in incrediblepain, incredible intensity,
(29:19):
and not lean away from it.
In fact, lean into it.
Accept it.
And even push through it.
Now that doesn't mean pain as insharp shooting, like something
that's going to destroy your body.
It just means the intensity of pushingso hard, that you're breathing so
(29:42):
hard, your heart's pumping so hard,that you feel like you can't do it.
It's intensity.
Yet, if you can develop theability to keep on pushing, when
everything's saying no, then
you can do amazing things.
(30:05):
And I think in any other, any area of yourlife, like, if you're in a relationship,
and it's scary to bring the thing up,
yeah, there'll be some discomfort.
But if it's a really importantrelationship, and you lean
(30:25):
into the discomfort of thosecommunications that you need to have,
that could change your relationship.
In my practice, sometimes,people are going through moments.
(30:48):
that are so difficult and theylook, they seem so distraught
that it will be easy to like kindof, Oh, it's going to be okay.
Just leave it at that.
But there'll be timeswhen I'll ask them, are
(31:09):
you okay?
Do you have thoughts of self harm?
Do you have a plan?
I'll ask people to promise meif it feels like it's too much.
(31:35):
Reach out to me, man.
I don't want to lose you.
I really don't.
I don't want to lose anybody.
I know it's hard sometimes, but leaninto the discomfort and grab your people.
(31:57):
We need you.
It's, it's, it's scaryto lean into discomfort.
But the
(32:18):
only way is through.
Get help if you need it.
Get support from your friends.
Be your own support.
If you want to be extraordinary in thislife, you got to lean into this comfort.
(32:44):
That's what I'm doing with this podcast.
I mean, I have trouble listeningto my own podcast because I
feel like it's this good enough.
Is it making a difference?
Who am I to do this?
Who am I to say I know something?
Who am I to be that person?
(33:07):
And yet I just come back to this mic
and I speak.
Because even if thisdoesn't make a difference,
even if it doesn't have theimpact that I'm dreaming of,
(33:29):
I don't want to be 90 years oldin my bed going, What if I had?
What if I tried?
What if I went?
What if I did it?
What if I worked?
What if I just made the effort?
I want to know that Idid everything I could.
(33:50):
I worked as hard as I could.
And then the outcome,
the outcome is the outcome.
I can be satisfied.
I don't need to be worldpopular or world famous.
(34:10):
I don't need to be known.
I don't need to be a household word.
All I need to know is that Idid everything I could to help.
And that's enough.
And I'll leave the outcome to the outcome.
(34:32):
Try it.
Lean into some discomfort.
I remember fear, fear some mile wide, it'sonly a D each dimp an each, an inch deep.
Uh, same with embarrassment,
(34:55):
same with fa failure's.
A, it's a mile wide and an inch deep.
It's all a mile.
Everything you're afraid ofis a mile wide and inch deep.
Step into it and see that, hey.
It's not that bad, okay?
It's shallow.
(35:17):
Once again, thank youso much for listening.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for helping me be my purpose.
Thank you for allowing me tocontribute something to you.
(35:41):
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of conversation with Kimen.
Please follow me on Instagramat conversations with Kimen
and feel free to direct message me.
Also, please share my podcast withanyone you may feel would benefit
(36:02):
from its content and let them know.
And you can find me atconversations with Kimen on Apple
podcasts, Spotify, and Podbean.
Have an amazing day.
the benefits of leaning into discomfort.
I, I've found that it's kind of humannature to kind of avoid discomfort.
You know, if things gettough, we tend to move away.
(00:24):
We find a way to distract.
We lean towards something, you know,food, something to numb the senses.
Even sometimes people will lean moreinto pursuits that Look on the outside as
(00:50):
healthy, but on the inside when they'reoverdone, they're not quite as healthy.
The Buddhists talk about
craving and aversion
and they say that both cause suffering.
(01:14):
So always moving towards somethingthat you're craving or that you
want or some kind of a pleasure
always like focusing on that andthen the aversion to discomfort and
the moving away and the Literallytrying to distract yourself from
(01:37):
what's going on inside or what you'refeeling or what you're thinking
You know, you see it a lot with
people are so focused on Basicallytheir phone and social media
and a lot of time grasping at thesethings to try to find a sense of value
(02:07):
and it's really interesting because Youcan numb yourself to a lot of things
That's not going to make them better.
And I'm not saying that to thepeople who are really well adjusted
and, and two feet on the groundand they don't have any issues.
(02:28):
No anxiety, no worry, no fear.
That's not who I'm talking to really.
Who I'm talking to are peoplelike myself for so many years.
Who,
when I was younger, yeah, I,I didn't really like myself.
(02:51):
I didn't see any real value in who I was.
And in fact, much even worse thanthat, I really did not like myself.
I hated myself, was embarrassed.
I would try to hide, spent so manyyears trying to hide, trying to
disappear, not wanting to stand outbecause it seemed like anytime I had
(03:17):
to stand out, you know, somebody wouldlaugh and I'd be so embarrassed and.
You know, that inner dialogue wouldsay, yeah, you idiot, you loser.
That was stupid.
That was stupid.
That was stupid.
And that inner dialoguefor me was really loud.
Um, at times it was so loud it came out,you know, uh, sometimes we have these
(03:42):
negative thoughts and they get louderand louder and louder till they come out.
And I spent a lot of yearstrying to find different ways
to distract myself from that.
At one point it was, itwas a kind of a self harm.
(04:03):
Not exactly trying to end my life at thatpoint, but more like punching things,
not people, because, I don't know, Ialways had a big heart, I was always
a gentle giant, I didn't want to hurtanybody, and if I did, I would feel
absolutely horrible, so I would punchthings, which really wasn't that great,
(04:30):
but sometimes it like, it quieted theinner voice, the inner calm, you know,
the, that conflict going on inside,inside your head, Or at least in mine.
And the funny thing is, it got soloud at one point that, you know,
(04:54):
I couldn't even be around people.
Because I couldn't evenarticulate, really talk to people.
Because I felt so negativeabout who I was in the time.
And I realized that thisis just no way to live.
(05:15):
Just avoiding and avoidingand avoiding everything.
Avoiding people, avoiding conversations.
Avoiding answering aquestion when I was in class.
Avoiding speaking in front of people.
Avoiding meeting new people.
(05:37):
Yeah, and even though I wanted tohave somebody special in my life,
I had such a negative self image that Ididn't believe anybody would be interested
in me or what I had to say or who I was.
So, I avoided that too.
And that went on for a really long time,
(06:02):
but at one point I realized that,
you know, I wish I, I really wishI would have heard this quote when
I was, when I was in my teen years.
Cause that was thetoughest, toughest part.
And I heard this quoterecently and it was like, fear
(06:24):
is a mile wide and you can imaginelike looking over at a mile of fear.
But what you don't know,it's only an inch deep.
So when you step into it, yourealize there's a long way
from this shore to that shore.
(06:47):
But the depth is veryshallow and manageable.
But before you step into it,
it seems overwhelming.
It's funny.
There's so many illusionslike that in this world.
So
(07:09):
back when I was a teenager I realizedthat if I don't overcome this paralyzing
social anxiety and fear that I have,that this would be the rest of my life.
Not having anybody in my life,not connecting with anybody.
And I honestly think there was a partof me that wanted to drive me down
(07:31):
so deep, so deep into depression thatmaybe I could not be here anymore.
I could find a way to not be here anymore.
Because the truth of life atthat point was I really felt
like the pain of being here
(07:54):
was so much greater thanthe pain of me leaving.
Honestly now I have a totally different,totally different take on this.
It's like, um, Yeah, the pain ofleaving is insurmountable compared
(08:17):
to the pain of being here right now.
And that doesn't mean I'm afraidof dying, as per se, but I am.
I've got so much I feel thatI need to do in this life.
Like
I want to keep on working on this podcastand getting my message out and clarifying
(08:41):
it and articulating it, and to thepoint that it comes free, free flowing.
I want to.
I want to know that even when I'm sleeping
that somebody's benefiting fromsomething I've created that I've,
that I put out there in the world,that I'm making a difference.
(09:04):
Like, that's my highestmotivator right now.
Like, I love my job.
I love making a difference, supportingthese human beings when they're
having tough times, supportingthem through the good times.
Absolutely love all this.
I do want more.
(09:26):
Like, I'm not satisfied.
So like I was saying, so in myteen years, I realized that,
that I was pushing myselfso far into this corner
that there might not be a way to come out.
(09:49):
It's kind of like, uh, I spent a fewyears up north and I'd work in camp,
and one time I worked in a camp for,you know, four, five, six months almost.
And when I came back to thelittle, uh, little, you know,
little city, Fort St. John,
(10:09):
and I went to the grocery store.
And I was completely paranoid.
There's people everywhere, andnoise, and it was just too much.
So I just loaded up on groceries, andI went back to the place I was staying,
and I stayed there for four days.
You know, when I was a teenager, I couldsee that if I don't do something about
(10:33):
this absolute fear of standing out, thisfear of pushing past all this stuff, like,
leaning into the discomfort I was feeling,
I would end up In my greatestfear would be, you know, my
(10:58):
dying days, absolutely alone.
Nobody in my life.
So, I thought about it, like, how,how, how can you break free when
you're feeling something like this?
And I thought, well,
I'm afraid of being embarrassed,but I don't typically do too much.
(11:20):
So, I thought, what if I microdosed embarrassment, right?
So I got involved in a, in a youth group,and In order to feel what it felt like to
be embarrassed, I would do little things.
And it doesn't sound very big,but you know, at 16, 17, you don't
(11:42):
want to stand out too much, right?
Because typically somebody's goingto point it out or make fun of you.
The more in the backgroundyou are, the better.
And it seemed like the people whowere in the foreground were the
people who were picking on otherpeople to distract people from paying
attention to them in any other way.
(12:04):
So, I mean, I started with simplethings like I had these fluorescent
orange and, and, uh, red socks.
So I'd mismatch them and wear them.
And people would laugh,you got the wrong socks.
I'm like, yeah, I did it on purpose.
Then I feel, you know, my facewould go red, but it wouldn't last
a long time and it would get better.
(12:25):
And I get involved with things.
And sometimes I'd sing out loud justto see the reaction and bit by bit, I
kind of leaned into the discomfort, andI learned that the discomfort wasn't
as big of a deal, you know, it's like,like I said that quote, like, fear
(12:47):
is a mile wide and an inch deep, andI imagine that almost embarrassment
is, is quite similar at that age.
It looks overwhelming, butit's shallow and short lived.
I learned that people are goingto spend about 11 seconds thinking
(13:08):
about you and what you did.
And then they're going to goback to thinking themselves.
So like, your impact you're goingto have on people normally, like
if you do something embarrassing,is going to be pretty short lived.
And then, as I was moving throughlife, trying to like, find different
(13:29):
ways, I got involved with some selfhelp work, and started volunteering.
Like my job was to stand atthe door, and I'd just start
up conversations with people.
And this is when I learned that,Actually really paying attention
(13:54):
to what's going on around you andbeing in the right place in the right
moment and Starting a conversationcan have a pretty powerful effect.
I remember I was Standing at the doorand there was this young girl young
woman and she just seemed reallyanxious and I'm like, hey, are you okay?
(14:21):
And she's yeah, I'm just really nervous.
I'm like Do you want to talk about it?
I'm right here.
I'm just gonna be standing at thedoor and she said, she says like I ran
away from home four years ago and I'vecome to this course and they, they say
you, they want me to, they're, they'rechallenging me to reach out to somebody
(14:45):
who I haven't reached out for a long time
and I, I really want to call my homecause I ran away like four years ago,
but I'm so scared.
I'm like, stand beside me and,uh, and I'll be right here.
(15:10):
And she dialed the phone,
and someone answered, and shestarted talking, and she was
crying, and they were crying, and
And she just walked away to, like,complete the conversation in about ten
(15:31):
minutes, and then she came back, andshe said thank you, and she hugged me.
She said, I just talked to my littlebrother, who I haven't talked to in four
years, and he said, I was so afraid,I would never hear from you again.
And I wasn't that guy that would noticeor interfere in somebody's life like that.
(15:55):
But my job was to stand atthe door and talk to people.
And I saw somebody in discomfortand normally I would have walked
away and not paid attention.
But
I pushed through my own discomfort.
I like forcing my way into their life.
(16:16):
And the result was pretty good.
You know, it's, it's also interesting.
So discomfort comes ina lot of ways, right?
Like,
like earlier this year, I wasgetting back into running.
(16:37):
Um, yeah, it was like, I'd slowly movedaway from running and my eating habits
got really poor and I was under a lotof stress because of some stuff that
happened, which, yeah, it just reallyhit me hard, helped me realize that.
Some of the direction I was movingwasn't gonna, doesn't look like
(17:00):
it was going to work out anymore.
And I was so sad about this partof my life that seemed to be
disappearing that I love so much
that, yeah, I stoppedtaking care of myself.
Really?
I was just existing.
(17:20):
I was staying up later.
I was eating crap food.
I wasn't exercising.
I wasn't thinking positive.
I wasn't creating anything.
I wasn't leaning into my hobbies.
I was just existing and thensomething significant happened and
(17:50):
I just sat with it
and I realized I had to do something.
So I got in touch with a counselor Iused to work with and booked in some
sessions and we started like facingsome really uncomfortable things.
(18:12):
And then it's interesting whenyou start off with, when you start
off back to exercise at first,
there's a lot of discomfort.
You know, I work 12 hoursa day, six days a week.
So getting up an extra halfan hour early is pretty hard.
And when the weather's crappy,that doesn't make it easier.
(18:37):
And then on top of that, one just feelslike hell, like running feels bad,
like can't breathe.
It's just, it justeverything about it sucks.
But I realized one thing that theonly way to get from where I was
(19:01):
in that moment to where I wanted tobe was to lean into the discomfort
and to push into the discomfort.
and keep on pushing overand over and over again.
(19:22):
And it's funny.
At first it was about discipline.
It's like, I said, I'm going to do it.
I'll do it.
And sometimes I failed.
I just acknowledged I failed andI got back up and I did it again.
And then it's interesting.
You started discipline.
And then after doing consistentlyfor long enough, now you're,
(19:45):
you're working towards a habit.
Then I had to run that.
Didn't completely suck.
I'm like, Hmm.
And then over time got back toruns that started to feel good.
I started to feel better.
(20:07):
My head started to clear.
I guess I should really add thatat that point when I went to see my
counselor, I also went to see my doctorcause I really wasn't feeling well
and it turned out my blood pressurewas absolutely through the roof.
It was like one 70 over 97.
Which, um, and the doctor said
(20:31):
at this point you have a 28percent chance of having a heart
attack in the next five years.
And it's interestingbecause I've seen people
get a declaration like that
(20:52):
and it doesn't wake them up andthey stay in their distraction
and they keep on eating crapand they don't change anything.
And I wonder,
like avoiding discomfort,is it really worth it?
(21:18):
Not for me though, becauselike I realized that
I got a purpose here.
I got people that count on me,
like, I'm here to help.
And if I'm not taking care of myself,how the hell can I help anyone?
(21:42):
So I got really present to what was goingto happen if I didn't take care of myself.
I really leaned hard into that discomfort.
And you know, a few years ago Iwent to a Tony Robbins seminar.
And he said something that really,really nailed it really well for me.
I don't know if it nails it foreverybody, but it nailed it for me.
(22:05):
And that was the fact, and it's a fact,
that human beings willdo more to avoid pain
than they will to seek pleasure.
And that made sense, right?
(22:26):
I'm not taking care of myself, I'mdistracting myself, I don't wanna,
I don't wanna think about all thisstuff, and then I get it in the face.
And he said, the trickhere, the real trick here.
Is if you really want to change something,you got to build up the amount of pain,
(22:51):
overwhelming pain, to staying the same.
And you got to lean into thatpain, and really see what it
look like, if you don't change.
Like you really live there, youdon't distract, you pay attention,
you wake up in that pain.
And I sat there and going like,yeah, next five years, heart attack,
(23:13):
not ever able to help anybody else,gaining more weight, maybe die.
And I thought about like, Dr. Wayne Dyerwhen he was writing his first book and he
wrote himself a, a letter, this massiveletter and he's, but the most important
(23:35):
thing he said, he said, don't die.
He said, don't die withyour music still in you.
And I got really present to me,leaving this earth without leaving
anything behind, nothing, not a word.
(23:56):
And I leaned so hardinto that pain that it.
It motivated me to start gettingup again, to start working again,
and it was hard at first.
I had to work on discipline.
Discipline was most important.
(24:20):
Over time, it got easier.
You know, now, like today, I ran 11k.
I did injure my hip, uh,running a 10k in November.
And, so I'm running slow.
And it's funny, running slowused to be so aggravating to me.
(24:40):
It's funny.
Uh, I'm willing to breathe sohard that I'm just about dying,
but I'm not willing to lean intothe discomfort of running really,
really slow so I'm not dying.
I mean, take what you want fromthat, but it's really interesting.
(25:02):
It's
really interesting.
So what I learned fromVipassana meditation, Buddhist
meditation, was the fact that
all your suffering comes from craving.
Craving certain thingsand leaning into those
(25:28):
and having aversion to beingwith painful sensations or strong
sensations or the sensations.
And in Vipassana they teach you,they're teaching equanimity.
You're building equanimity.
And you would sit foran hour without moving.
And you can imagine how much,how many pains and itches and
(25:51):
things come up in your body.
But you're just sittingthere and you're breathing.
You're sitting there breathing andyou're you're watching your thoughts
and when you get stuck on a thoughtyou just go back to the breath you
sit and breathe and the sensationarises in your body and you breathe
and you sit with that sensation andIt's not even you don't acknowledge it.
(26:15):
You don't deny it you just sitwith it and you breathe and I
had a couple experiences where
Where it was actually a thought itwasn't a sensation, but I knew that
thought I was so familiar And it was onething that devastated me so many times
in my life and it's sitting in frontof me And I'm just sitting with it.
(26:38):
I'm like, oh no not here And I rememberhearing in the back of my mind the
teacher says don't react go back tothe breath And I kept on doing that
and suddenly it just popped and itdisappeared and it disappeared so strongly
But I don't remember what it was And Ihad this incredible feeling of freedom.
(27:05):
That's what they say.
It's like, it's liberation.
When one of these things thatare stuck in you dissipates.
And the only way you can getthere is by sitting with it.
You probably heard me say this before.
Resistance causes persistence.
(27:28):
If you're resisting,
if you're resisting discomfort,the discomfort will persist.
It'll keep on going.
You're just resistingbeing with it, right?
You're resisting accepting it.
You're fight, fight, fight.
You know, fighting, it'sinteresting, fighting just gives
(27:51):
energy to what you're resisting.
But when you can find a way to just acceptit, sit with it, be with it, lean into it,
acceptance causes disappearance.
And it's crazy, like, I've seen thisin my life where I accept something
(28:13):
just as it is, and it's even somethingthat before then I could not accept.
And when I truly accept it, not settle forit, but accept it just as it is, just as
it's not, and allow it to be there for therest of my life, and I'm fine with that.
(28:33):
One or two incredible things happen.
One, of course, if you're actuallyin true acceptance of something,
it disappears as a problem.
It's no longer a problembecause you've accepted it.
But the crazier thing is sometimes it justdisappears completely, almost magically.
(28:55):
I've heard, I've heard elite runners say,
That the difference between the top peopleand the people who don't quite make it
is this ability to be in incrediblepain, incredible intensity,
(29:19):
and not lean away from it.
In fact, lean into it.
Accept it.
And even push through it.
Now that doesn't mean pain as insharp shooting, like something
that's going to destroy your body.
It just means the intensity of pushingso hard, that you're breathing so
(29:42):
hard, your heart's pumping so hard,that you feel like you can't do it.
It's intensity.
Yet, if you can develop theability to keep on pushing, when
everything's saying no, then
you can do amazing things.
(30:05):
And I think in any other, any area of yourlife, like, if you're in a relationship,
and it's scary to bring the thing up,
yeah, there'll be some discomfort.
But if it's a really importantrelationship, and you lean
(30:25):
into the discomfort of thosecommunications that you need to have,
that could change your relationship.
In my practice, sometimes,people are going through moments.
(30:48):
that are so difficult and theylook, they seem so distraught
that it will be easy to like kindof, Oh, it's going to be okay.
Just leave it at that.
But there'll be timeswhen I'll ask them, are
(31:09):
you okay?
Do you have thoughts of self harm?
Do you have a plan?
I'll ask people to promise meif it feels like it's too much.
(31:35):
Reach out to me, man.
I don't want to lose you.
I really don't.
I don't want to lose anybody.
I know it's hard sometimes, but leaninto the discomfort and grab your people.
(31:57):
We need you.
It's, it's, it's scaryto lean into discomfort.
But the
(32:18):
only way is through.
Get help if you need it.
Get support from your friends.
Be your own support.
If you want to be extraordinary in thislife, you got to lean into this comfort.
(32:44):
That's what I'm doing with this podcast.
I mean, I have trouble listeningto my own podcast because I
feel like it's this good enough.
Is it making a difference?
Who am I to do this?
Who am I to say I know something?
Who am I to be that person?
(33:07):
And yet I just come back to this mic
and I speak.
Because even if thisdoesn't make a difference,
even if it doesn't have theimpact that I'm dreaming of,
(33:29):
I don't want to be 90 years oldin my bed going, What if I had?
What if I tried?
What if I went?
What if I did it?
What if I worked?
What if I just made the effort?
I want to know that Idid everything I could.
(33:50):
I worked as hard as I could.
And then the outcome,
the outcome is the outcome.
I can be satisfied.
I don't need to be worldpopular or world famous.
(34:10):
I don't need to be known.
I don't need to be a household word.
All I need to know is that Idid everything I could to help.
And that's enough.
And I'll leave the outcome to the outcome.
(34:32):
Try it.
Lean into some discomfort.
I remember fear, fear some mile wide, it'sonly a D each dimp an each, an inch deep.
Uh, same with embarrassment,
(34:55):
same with fa failure's.
A, it's a mile wide and an inch deep.
It's all a mile.
Everything you're afraid ofis a mile wide and inch deep.
Step into it and see that, hey.
It's not that bad, okay?
It's shallow.
(35:17):
Once again, thank youso much for listening.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for helping me be my purpose.
Thank you for allowing me tocontribute something to you.
(35:41):
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of conversation with Kimen.
Please follow me on Instagramat conversations with Kimen
and feel free to direct message me.
Also, please share my podcast withanyone you may feel would benefit
(36:02):
from its content and let them know.
And you can find me atconversations with Kimen on Apple
podcasts, Spotify, and Podbean.
Have an amazing day.
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