“How are you, my friend?”

Do you find yourself asking your people this more often lately?
It’s a heavier question today than in times past, no?
What are we really asking? What do we want to know (or not)?
I opened last week’s post by asking, and again today; the redundance feels important and necessary.

It’s Pride Month, and I’m seeing a lot less of the “Wishing all the homophobes a super uncomfortable month” memes now compared to last year, which I’m glad about. I thought about updating my dissent post today, but I think it still stands strong on its own:
“…The best intention of this message, I think, is solidarity and allyship. The impact may be very different. I can imagine someone who feels uncomfortable, for whatever reason, with non-cis/het identity feeling rejected, shamed, and even hated by this message. What response is this likely to engender? How does that make anything better for anyone? How does it advance the cause?
“…If we were all better at embracing our various discomforts (healthy eating, exercising more, being more honest with ourselves and others, having the hard conversations, etc.), at making it safe for one another to engage with and overcome them, how would that feel? How would our relationships and communities be? Right now we make it safe to respond to our discomforts with rage, blame, and dehumanizing. When I see people wishing discomfort on others, I’m disappointed.
“We can do better.”

A friend and I have exchanged messages about the value of discomfort, how it makes us stop and take perspective, how it shapes us and can make us better.

I still never wish discomfort on anyone. But I’m happy to encourage folks to embrace its inevitability and possibility for growth through it. Let us seek and engage with the worthy discomforts–those which move us through our stagnant assumptions and mental rigidities toward creativity, discovery, and deeper connection. And let’s do it together–mutually supportive and loving, striving always for better understanding, acceptance, and community through the joys and challenges of diversity and inclusion.

Embracing our discomfort often means acknowledging and facing our fears.
Fear is a legitimate and important emotion, required for survival throughout our evolution. Besides pain, is there a more uncomfortable sensation than threat and fear?
Can we recognize when our anger, righteousness, arrogance, disengagement, and even hatred are all founded on unacknowledged, limbic, or even existential fear?
Can we kindly, patiently, curiously, and humbly help one another explore and unpack it all?

How comfortable are any of us with any of this?
How much easier is it to declare categorical truths with certainty and authority, dismissing nuance and complexity, suppressing doubt, and rejecting earnest discussion and debate?

We each get to choose how we show up to our fears, how we cope with discomfort.
Sometimes all we can do is turn around and run the other way. We can deflect or armor up. They’re called ‘defense mechanisms’ for good reason, and the older I get the more I see and accept that we all have them. Each of us comes by our own honestly, and judging one another for them rarely makes anything better. Discomfort makes us squirelly at best, destructive at worst.

What if we shared our comfort with one another?

I messaged a friend last weekend:
“Reconnected with (a guy friend) recently, who is now a transitioning woman and agreed to take me to my first silent book club at a lesbian speakeasy this month! [Mentioned here last week–I’m very excited about this.]
“Omg dear one, our world is so chaotic and uncertain, and yet there is still SO MUCH GOOD in the day to day, face to face, in person connections of love and shared humanity. I hope you feel as surrounded by it as I do.”
Clearly, I feel very comfortable with gender transition.

But I know people for whom transgenderism is extremely uncomfortable, an unfathomable and existential threat to their core values and beliefs about humanity. I sense their acute distress, their stuckness, their utter helplessness to understand or accept the concept and get to peace with it–especially when a loved one discloses and transitions. I wish I could take away their sorrow and anguish. I know it’s not because they ‘hate’ transgender people or wish for anyone to repress their authentic selves. Their discomfort is not rooted in malice. And their experience far and away exceeds ‘discomfort,’ but I use this example to remind myself that humans come to any given issue or idea with a vast variety and complexity of attitudes, histories, and comfort levels.

The better we can tolerate, embrace, and process our discomfort, the stronger and more resilient we can be in the face of adversity and true threats to our survival, I think. And I wish for no one to have to do this alone.
Genuine human connection mitigates pain, suffering, and the extreme discomforts of fear, grief, and uncertainty. It is the most effective balm for what ails our hearts.

So this Pride Month and beyond, when we feel uncomfortable about something, anything, may we reach out with vulnerability and courage ahead of anger and antagonism. May our first instincts be to connect more than to judge. May we meet others’ discomfort with empathy, compassion, understanding, and patience. We can do this even in the smallest encounter, with few or even no words, with the most fleeting of looks. It takes practice. Thankfully, life presents us with the opportunity every time we meet another human.