What does that mean?<\/em> I\u2019m sitting in a coffee shop, trying to shut off the voices in my head. Around me there is so much hustle and bustle\u2014cars with their rushing tires and beeping horns, birds with their squawks and fluttering wings, babies with their laughter and coos\u2014sometimes I feel like I\u2019m lost in the mix of it all. And that terrifies me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want the world to make sense. I want to have the answers. I want to wake up every morning with a sense of who I am, what I\u2019m supposed to do, and whether or not I\u2019m on the right path. I want to know, without a doubt, if I\u2019m following truth, if I\u2019m with my forever person, if the questions in my head will have answers. I just want to know<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when I look around, when I talk to the ones I love, when I encounter strangers, when people send me messages asking for advice or a listening ear\u2014I find we\u2019re all honestly searching for the same things. We all want to be understood, to understand, to make sense of who we are and where we fit in the big mess of this world. Isn\u2019t that crazy?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I bring myself back to the present moment, stirring my straw around my drink absentmindedly. I feel so\u2026off. Lately I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about discomfort\u2014about the moments where everything seems wrong or out of place, when I can\u2019t hear God\u2019s voice, or when I\u2019m blindly moving through my day and it feels like something is missing\u2014discomfort.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our human intuition knows that discomfort means something isn\u2019t right, that something\u2019s changed. And so we try to do everything in our power to keep it the same, thinking that if we push back hard enough, we\u2019ll be able to resist fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s so natural to oppose discomfort. It\u2019s so natural to want the opposite, to crave order, peace, and understanding. It\u2019s so natural to chase what\u2019s comfortable and easy, to look for anything that resembles the familiar or safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the truth is not always what we want to hear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the discomfort, we learn what makes us tick. We find people and opportunities that shape the way we see the world. We encounter pain that teaches us to heal in ways we\u2019ve never tried to before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the discomfort, we learn that unanswered prayers are blessings<\/a> all on their own. We see how to survive without the people we thought we\u2019d have by our side forever. We discover the inherent ability within us to fight, pursue, and continue, even in the wake of brokenness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the discomfort, we\u2019re pushed to be different people. We\u2019re forced to shift the way we react, the way we love, the way we become. In the discomfort we find who we\u2019re truly capable of being. And that\u2019s not something we stumble upon when our world\u2019s safe and all makes sense.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Learn to be comfortable in the discomfort.<\/em> Maybe what that means is to simply hold on through the tough moments<\/a>. Because those moments will shape us. Because those moments are temporary. Because those moments will lead us down the path we\u2019re meant to be on<\/a>. Because those moments are the ones that actually help us answer the questions we have in our heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We don\u2019t grow if we don\u2019t let life happen to us, if we resist anything that feels unfamiliar, if we hate discomfort too much to learn anything from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But just like the mix of sounds all around me, just like the constant ebb and flow of relationships, conversations, life itself\u2014we\u2019re never stuck in one place. And this is a good thing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So we must learn to be comfortable with what makes us uncomfortable. Because in those moments of uneasiness are shaping us, are helping us find who we are, and will become. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the discomfort is where we find who we are, where we grow, where we become better and more resilient versions of ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52923609,"featured_media":1175037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"thoughtcatalog_call_to_action":"","tc_post_redirect":"","thoughtcatalog_is_sponsored_content":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[603229949,603198233],"tags":[],"anchortext":[],"posttemplate":[],"adcampaign":[],"coauthors":[313988948],"class_list":["post-1175036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mental-health","category-self-help"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/animgraph-lab-1ate6CRoCO8-unsplash.jpg","author_meta":null,"photo_credit":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52923609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175039,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175036\/revisions\/1175039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1175037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175036"},{"taxonomy":"anchortext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anchortext?post=1175036"},{"taxonomy":"posttemplate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posttemplate?post=1175036"},{"taxonomy":"adcampaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adcampaign?post=1175036"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1175036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}In the discomfort is where we find who we are, where we grow, where we become better and more resilient versions of ourselves.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
We don\u2019t grow if we\u2019re always standing still. If we\u2019re forever clinging to what we know, too afraid to try anything else.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n