Every morning during the summer, while I am at camp, I take a short hike up to Glacier Pool and jump in. It's about a 4 foot drop from a rock into an icy pool of mountain stream water. I noticed that the cold water helps my anxiety, calms me down, leaves me calmer and more grounded afterward. After doing it, I feel great. Despite the fact that I have been doing this for years now, I still often hesitate at the top of the rock, and I still sometimes feel a little trepidation as I am walking up the trail– there’s a little dread at my solar plexus as I get closer. While I love the experience and feel better for it, the moment my body plunges into the icy water (actually, about 2 seconds after) can be pretty painful. At the beginning of the summer, when the water is colder and my body hasn’t acclimated, it can take my breath away.
The fact that I willingly do this every day, despite dreading it each time, says something important about human nature. When I tell people about this summer ritual, I frequently get blank stares, confused looks, and head shakes. But in spite of the fact that doing this is one of the highlights of my summer, it does not change the resistance I feel before I jump. In the moments before I leap, my body tries to convince me that this is a bad idea. That resistance is not a reflection of how much I enjoy the experience, but a reflection of how the nervous system is built: to avoid pain and discomfort
Our nervous system– along with the nervous system of pretty much every other living creature– is designed to keep us safe. That means we, along with every other creature, have a nervous system that is designed to avoid noxious stimuli (pain), and seek out things that are pleasurable (sex, food, etc). Over the timeframe that living creatures have been on this planet– billions of years– this has worked pretty well. But this wiring, the way we are made up, can also cause problems for us.
This desire to avoid pain is not a preference, it's an instinct. Moreover, it is an instinct that often expresses itself so quickly, or so subtly, that we do not even realize it is at play. For example, we will often instinctively avoid exercise because we find it painful, even though we know it is good for us and makes us feel better.
In the example of jumping off of a rock into icy water, my nervous system’s resistance is obvious, as is the intentional overriding of that instinct. But many times in our lives, the override is much faster, much more automatic, and much less dramatic– and therefore dramatically more difficult to see. Often, we do not see at all how we avoid things. When jumping into Glacier Pool, I need to intentionally override the aversion. When thinking about exercise, or walking instead of driving, the operating system that governs how we behave, interact, think, and feel is often much less visible. We move away from these things we anticipate will be painful without even realizing we have taken a step back. To the extent that we notice it at all, we might call it “just not in the mood” or “being lazy.”
Many of the neural pathways involved in physical pain overlap with those involved in emotional pain. When we lose something or someone important to us, we call it an ache for good reason. But while we are generally conditioned to understand physical pain, and our avoidance of it, we are much less conditioned or trained to notice the same ways we avoid emotionally noxious stimuli. Our aversion to pain is just as present when considering emotional pain and difficulty as it is with physical discomfort. Just like we might skip exercise, or skip going outside into the cold, or skip the midday sun without realizing it, we also often skip looking inward at the places that are uncomfortable– the hard conversations, unpleasant consequences, or difficult relationships that we all carry.
This is less about weakness or avoidance or a character flaw, and more about the basic operating principles of the nervous system. We instinctively move away from what hurts before we are even aware we are doing it. We can learn to notice and work with these instincts, but we cannot simply switch them off. The tendency to avoid pain is built into the way we are wired.This does not mean we are powerless to act differently, but it does mean that moving toward discomfort usually requires awareness and intentionality rather than instinct alone. Looking at these places, having these difficult conversations requires purpose in the same way that jumping into Glacier Pool does not happen by accident.
Many of us pride ourselves on being willing to tolerate discomfort. But the issue is not whether we are capable of hard things; it is that our nervous system is designed to avoid pain by default. That avoidance often happens so automatically that we do not recognize it while it is occurring. I can convince myself I am being honest and self-aware while unconsciously sidestepping the very thing I do not want to feel. Because these maneuvers are subtle and deeply ingrained, they are often easier for other people to notice than for us to see ourselves.
Meditation has helped me notice this more clearly. By practicing observation without immediately reacting, analyzing, or distracting myself, I have started to recognize the movement of my own mind more directly. I notice how certain thoughts or emotions create a kind of internal recoil, and how quickly my attention tries to move elsewhere. The value of the practice has not been in controlling my thoughts, but in becoming more aware of the ways they instinctively organize themselves around avoiding discomfort. Avoidance may be automatic, but awareness of that avoidance is something we can intentionally cultivate.
Steering away from psychologically or emotionally difficult things is not good or bad, and it is not destiny that says we will never be able to confront difficulty. Instead, it is simply an observation about how our nervous system works– our body is literally evolved to avoid painful stimuli. Our thoughts and feelings can be painful, therefore, we avoid them– even when we are trying not to. I hesitate to jump into Glacier Pool because my nervous system resists painful stimuli, in spite of the fact that I love this part of my morning ritual. Some of us might be more practiced than others at noticing we do this, or at training ourselves to move toward these uncomfortable feelings, but that does not change the fact that all of us have a nervous system that operates in pretty much the same way. Even after years of doing it, I still hesitate at the top of the rock sometimes. The resistance never fully disappears. The practice is learning to recognize it, and jump anyway.
Love,
Doc
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