“The most important thing is to not run away from yourself.”
——Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
My default, for most of my twenties, was escape — not the dramatic kind, just the small constant kind: scrolling, overworking, filling every quiet moment before it had a chance to ask anything of me. Staying busy felt like coping. It took a while to see it was just avoidance with better branding.
Sitting with discomfort — actually sitting, not fixing or numbing, is something I’m still learning to do. But there’s a strange, unexpected relief that comes when you stop running. The feeling you were avoiding is almost never as unbearable as the exhaustion of the running itself. You can survive being alone with yourself. More than that, it might be the only way you ever really meet yourself.