How To Sit In Uncomfortable Feelings

It’s hard, and while I am not the best person to offer a guide, I thought I’d give it a quick shot.

More About Me: LinkedIn | Why I Write On Substack

I’m not some “guru” or “entrepreneur” or whatever. I am just a guy with a random day job who writes some stuff on a few platforms here and there. I am definitely some other-worldly success (P.S. no one seems to know how to actually define that term, but I digress) but I’ve been through some beauty and some shit in my life, absolutely. I use writing often to figure out my own feelings on things, and this post might be a version of that. I’m not entirely sure yet.

Recently, in the last two hours of the workday, I’ve been watching longer-form YouTube stuff. Some is pretty interesting; a lot is cringe. Here is one with Simon Sinek and Melinda Gates (French?). It is both cool and cringe in equal parts.

Melinda here is incredibly affluent and also went through a massively-public divorce, and one that was very likely tied to Jeffrey Epstein, who might be the ultimate Bogeyman of the last 20–30 years. She’s been through some shit. She also doesn’t have to worry about 92% of the things we all have to worry about, and apparently her daughter is now both (1) a pediatrician, (2) living in a $51M NYC apartment, and (3) married to a famous cricket or polo guy? I can’t keep up.

Anyway.

In here, Melinda (we’re on a first-name basis, naturally) speaks about “sitting in uncomfortable feelings” and/or “sitting in uncomfortable moments.” This is a very important part of life, and happens to most people more than they’d admit. If you can do this and get to the next tier where things seem maybe a tiny bit more normal or stable, you can usually develop a decent amount of resilience, which helps a lot with adulthood.

I’ve been divorced and then I got remarried, and in the second relationship, I’m on about Year 5 of infertility, so I’ve sat with some uncomfortable shit over the years. (This is also not Victimhood Olympics — I’ve had some great moments, years, and friends. Not so much jobs, but that might be a function of late-stage capitalism, honestly.)

Here is a brief guide to things I have thought about or realized. Maybe some of them will help you too.

Here is what NOT to do: Anger and IPAs

I don’t know where my anger comes from, although I have tried over the years to figure it out, but I definitely have a deep cut of “white male rage” from time to time. I think it’s because I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. Just being honest.

Anyway.

For many years, a period also known as “my 30s,” I dealt with some of this anger and alienation by drinking like eight to ten Double IPAs in the span of two hours. This is not the best way to sit with uncomfortable feelings or emotions, because as you may have learned in school, alcohol is a “depressant,” and mainlining it tends to thus make you more depressed, which can subsequently bring out more anger. I lost about six or seven relatively-important friendships this way over the years. I regret a good chunk of that, but I am also aware that you often need to lie in the beds you make, so here I am.

Addiction defers time and dreams, so if you feel like this is your primary coping strategy for discomfort, I would reconsider it. It doesn’t really help. You can have some good life conversations with guys at the bar, and learn about human nature in this way, but those guys also will return to their lives and never think about you again. It’s just a Band-Aid on the discomfort dam.

So what could you do?

Therapy?

I’m not the biggest fan of therapy, honestly, and I don’t think it works that well for dudes. But it does for some! Funny story: I asked a therapist friend of mine literally last weekend this question: “What percentage of middle-aged men in therapy do you think are there because their wife forced them to go?” Without hesitation, he said: “Easily 75.” I kinda think that’s what middle-aged male therapy is, but it works for some people. In fact, let me give you another video clip of relevance here.