This is what our whole bag is right? Dealing with discomfort. This is not physical, this puppy is all wrapped up in how you judge what is happening, in other words it’s about what you are thinking.
Identity
The more you identify with mind, the more discomfort you will experience. So feeling it is very different to thinking it. Give it a shot, allow yourself to feel the discomfort.
Relaxing into pain
For an athlete, probably one of the best practises you can make habitual. Track sessions, pool sessions, bike efforts. Check your tension, relax into it, see how relaxed you can become at speed.
You grin, you win
The act of smiling has a profound impact on the nervous system, neuroscience is proving it, smiling into the face of the challenge sends a message from the brain to the nervous system to calm down and down regulate. What’s the skinny? You will save precious energy for your process that has been wasted in useless stress and tension.
Your mind wants to escape
Have you ever noticed the more challenge you are facing, the more your mind wants to escape? This is pure resistance to your own process, you are the master not your mind. Keep yourself on track by staying out of resistant thoughts of escape.
Degree of pain
The Degree of pain you are feeling is equal to your denial of the present situation. The situation is as it is, don’t try and change it, change your response.
Tolerance
You don’t know what you can tolerate until you tolerate it. Now, there’s only one plan here Stan, stay present with what where you are right now, stay out of thoughts of the past and the future and you will understand what you can actually tolerate.
Pain association
The problem with discomfort and pain is that we always associate it to something we have experienced before. That creates a doubt and a fear that it will happen again in the future. Don’t associate what has happened before to where you are now. Its an illusion but it’s a damaging one to your discomfort management.
Acceptance of discomfort
Accept the pain and you can change the brains opinion. Pain and discomfort are really the brains opinion of how much danger you are in. You have to teach it how to change its opinion, acceptance is the teacher here, if it’s tough, say yes, if it’s really tough, say yes even this.
Judgment is like velcro
Negative judgement of weather conditions, courses, other competitors simply attracts more discomfort. The more negative judgement you go into, the more you are going to experience and the more suffering you are going to feel, you are creating that reality.
Lose the duality
Forget the war you think exists between yourself and the course or the other competitors. Lose your thoughts of duality and become so focused on your process that you become one with it, then your pain and discomfort will flow out of you as fast as it accumulates.
No man steps inn the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man. ~Heraclitus