The Discomfort IS the Experience
**Please note that this blog post includes images from my birth with a bit of nipple and discoloured bath water.
In the summer of July 2019, I was giving birth to my daughter — in my bathtub. I always said that if I ever had a baby, I’d be doing it with the most amount of pain removing drugs as possible. Give me the nitrous, give me the epidural. It took me and others by surprise that I shifted my perspective to wanting to labour at home. While I, when recounting this shift, usually attribute the change in watching a documentary called “The Business of Being Born”, what I think now was (more so) happening was the first step of my body achingly demanding, pleading for me to find a way back to her.
I remember most of my birth fondly. Most notably, that I had a profound sense of control, autonomy and room to birth in a way that felt best for me. An experience that many birthing people are robbed of — for this, I am very thankful. I was freely allowed to move about my space, to shift positions, and to make requests of the people supporting me. When I asked my midwife what we did if I was overdue, she looked at me plainly and said; “We wait? Your baby won’t stay in there forever.” (Tell that to an 8 day overdue, very angry pregnant Megs.) Don’t worry, I texted her on the 8th day and said, “I’m drinking an entire bottle of castor oil and you can’t stop me.” She called and said, “Ok ok, but here’s how you do it properly.”
The ability to labour in my tub was a gift. The hot water alleviated a lot of my pain (thank god for an on demand water heater), and luckily for me, our rental had a very large tub that accommodated all the squirming I needed to do in order to feel comfortable. Ahhh. To feel comfortable. While pushing a massive thing out of my vagina. Comfort. Ha.
We rob ourselves of the experience that pain and discomfort brings us, by instinctually pushing away and resisting it.
(If you didn’t come here for a full blown birth story, sorry not sorry, but it’s building a nice picture for you I swear.) So there I was, in transitional labour, my contractions were about two minutes apart. They felt like a tidal wave I had to ride in order to get to the other side. They’re intense and very painful. Every time one showed up, I gripped the sides of my tub and literally attempted to push my labouring body out of the water, an instinctual reaction of trying to run away from the pain. You know when something painful is happening to your body and you tense up, grit your teeth, and otherwise activate your body? It’s resistance. And surprisingly, it can increase both the severity and duration of the pain.
Think about people who die of drowning, and how often they die of panic before they die of water entering their lungs.
Thanks to angel Marley for getting my maternity photos.
My midwife said something to me I’ll never forget, despite me being mad at her at the time. She said something to the effect of:
“You’re resisting these contractions. When one comes again, push your bum to the bottom of the tub and try really hard to sink into it. Root down, into the ground, and push INTO the pain, instead of stretching away from it.”
I know that I heard her, ‘cause I remember it now. But at the time, I thought to myself, “how dare you tell me how to deal with my pain, it’s mine to deal with however I want.” But it worked. It didn’t alleviate the pain, god no. But pushing into it transformed the relationship I had with it. Now, instead of the big bad hard thing being my enemy, I was walking hand in hand with it. Understanding why it’s here, and feeling the full extent of it. A harder route indeed, but ultimately a more rewarding and embodying one.
It absolutely made the contractions ~*feel a bit shorter and reduced the added tension in my body, helping me to relax a bit more, to be able to do the next part. Not at all surprisingly, it was very quickly after I sunk into the pain, that I went from transitional labour, to active pushing.
Three years later, I finally understood the metaphor.
I don’t think I would have ever known I’d spent a near lifetime disconnected from my body, until I no longer was. I don’t think it would have occurred to me that I was processing literally nothing and mostly disassociating, until I found myself in a position where I was forced to.
A few months ago, I joked about how if I had a memoir, the title would be something like, “Megs: an entirely personality built around avoiding discomfort at all costs.” It was a joke, because that’s how I gently tell my brain it’s time to process something. By joking about it, usually with incredibly poor timing, and in a super non-ideal situation. So much so, the first thing my therapist called me out on was how I didn’t, like, ‘need’ to make my baggage more palatable for her with humour if I didn’t want to. (How dare you.) Anyway…
So here I am, three years later, and for the first time in my entire life I’m landing back into my body. And here’s a couples truths I’ve finally realized:
Pain, discomfort, solitude and all the rest of the feelings we’ve culturally deemed negative aren’t actually detours from the main road of ‘joy, contentment and happiness’. They’re all on the main road together.
With discomfort, almost always, comes growth. Transition. Evolution. Discomfort, anger, sadness… they are some of the best teachers. When we sink into them, instead of actively resist them, not only do they pass quicker but they’re full of lessons and truths. Albeit hard ones.
And most importantly, the discomfort that I spend an entire lifetime running away from… the pain that I thought would kill me, didn’t.
For the really literal people in the back, the discomfort I speak to is that of: loneliness, baggage from a decade of disassociation, narratives I have for myself no longer being true, other peoples perception of me, and the discomfort of facing truths that I have long avoided.
I give myself grace that I didn’t have the tools that I do now, hindsight indeed is always 20/20. For a long time I looked to other people and our society at large to tell me who I am, what I should be doing, and where I should go. It felt easier to rely on the direction of other people and things instead of muster the strength to carve out a path for myself. I don’t admonish myself for this tried and true survival skill, I now just feel immense relief that I don’t live there anymore. I now look to myself, or try to for the most part (old habits man), for the knowledge and bravery that I know I have.
I do indeed, know myself best.
I defined myself around a rule that other people knew me better, marrying myself to defining characteristics, often excluding new experiences along the way. I told myself I couldn’t do this, or that. I was unable. I wasn’t adept. I tunnel visioned my own personality and abilities into something that eventually I didn’t recognize and found exhausting to maintain. It happened slowly, and over time. Give yourself grace if you find yourself in similar shoes.
The thing that happens when you start trusting yourself again, and looking to yourself, is you crash land back in your body. The first point of awareness is now how your body IS responding to things, instead of how you SHOULD be responding. Wild hey? I know. It’s BRAND new. How is this external stimuli making ME feel, not “am I doing this correctly?".
Now … I notice. Things and sensations I never did before. I try new things, just for the fuck of it. I talk to myself (sometimes literally out loud) about where I’m holding tension in my body. I look in the mirror with kindness and care. And what’s happening as a by product, is:
I’m far more resilient than I ever gave myself credit for. I’m far more powerful than I EVER gave myself credit for. I’m far more CAPABLE and DESERVING than I EVER gave myself credit for.
I can do, literally, anything. Including showing my kid, all this.
I now experience the full range of human emotion. This includes “failing” (whatever that means, honestly), disappointing myself and others. Fear. Experiencing ecstasy, moments of transcendence and unfettered joy. Pockets of tenderness, community and mutual understanding. Sorrow, tears, and periods of profound loneliness that sit like a stone in my belly.
This is it, man. The big bad human experience.
I’ve gone through so much in the last year. Bone aching pain and heart shattering joy. In a previous life, I would have looked at it and said “wow that looks too hard”. But what I’ve come to learn is, all of that is how you know you're doing it right. You’re supposed to sink into the pain (like, don’t live there for too long), you’re supposed to experience the full gamut of human emotion — that’s why we HAVE THEM. So that we can have a more full, embodied experience.
Anger teaches us when injustice is happening, and fuels powerful motivated action. Sadness teaches us when something is important to us, and therefore its absence is painful. Fear teaches us where we carry trauma, or when we’re literally in danger. Restlessness teaches us that something isn’t quite right. Selfishness indicates a lack of selfhood. Guilt teaches us where we hold narratives and values(some worthy of being broken).
All of the feelings that we’ve deemed “negative” are some of our greatest teachers. And learning to harness them in a way that isn’t wildly destructive, is where our internal power lies. But! The most important thing that we hold at the end of the day as to be self trust. When we trust ourselves first, we become present in our bodies, encounter new experiences, advocate for ourselves, hold better boundaries… the list goes on and on. In a world where we’re told we can’t trust ourselves, and that everyone and everything else knows better — self trust is an act of active resistance.
In order to build a life that feels true, that feels like yours, you must trust yourself. To step, to actualize, to advocate, to honour, to survive, but most importantly, to know.
