Being Comfortable in Discomfort
It is often said that the brain is wired for safety, not for happiness. At first, this can sound discouraging, as if our biology is destined to keep us anxious rather than fulfilled. But the truth is a lot more nuanced. The human nervous system was shaped over millennia to prioritize survival above all else. If our ancestors were not vigilant, they did not live long enough to pass on their genes. Happiness, fulfillment, and growth became possible only once safety was secured.
This basic wiring still lives in us today. When the nervous system senses uncertainty, tension, or threat, its primary goal is to restore safety. It does not pause to ask whether happiness, connection, or personal growth might be found in the discomfort. It reacts instinctively, pushing us toward behaviors that feel protective in the moment. Sometimes those behaviors are genuinely life-saving. Other times they are simply the nervous system’s attempt to shield us from unease, even when no real danger is present.
For leaders and professionals in the modern world, this creates a profound tension. We aspire to growth, to courage, to authentic relationships. Yet the very system designed to keep us alive can hold us back from these goals, because it confuses discomfort with danger. Understanding this tension between safety and growth, between instinctive protection and conscious expansion, is at the heart of learning to be comfortable in discomfort.
This article explores what it means to reinterpret the signals of our nervous system, to recognize discomfort not as a warning to retreat but as an invitation to grow. It begins with the simple but powerful recognition that the body’s first priority is not happiness. It is safety. Only when we honor and understand this truth can we learn how to expand beyond it.
The Message of Discomfort
Discomfort is one of the most familiar yet least examined aspects of human life. We usually experience it as unpleasant, something to be avoided, a sign that something is wrong, or an indication that we are out of place. This instinct makes sense because the nervous system is built to keep us safe. When we feel discomfort, it is the body sending us a signal that something in our environment might not be secure. The trouble is that our nervous system does not only respond to what is happening right now. It predicts what might happen, and those predictions are based on past experiences that may no longer apply.
This predictive quality can be both powerfully protective and surprisingly limiting. It helps us anticipate threats before they occur so we can react without having to make a conscious assessment of the situation. When we put a hand on a hot stove, our nervous system instantly respondss with apin and we pull the hand away usually before we have even consciously registered what’s going on. However, this predictive capacity of our brain can also lead us to misinterpret harmless situations as dangerous. A person who once experienced shame for speaking up in class may find their body still tightening before presenting at work decades later. A leader who was punished for a past mistake may overreact to minor risks, not because today’s situation warrants it, but because the nervous system is replaying an old story of danger. Discomfort in this sense is not the enemy but a message. It alerts us that our nervous system is interpreting the moment through the lens of safety. When we treat discomfort not as a command to react but as information to be examined, we create the space to respond differently.
The Nervous System’s Task of Safety
At its most basic, the nervous system’s task is to ensure our survival. It constantly monitors every stimulus, inside and outside of us, to answer a simple question: Am I safe or not? When it perceives safety, the body can rest, connect, and create. When it perceives threat, it mobilizes energy to protect us. This mobilization is usually automatic. We do not choose to feel our heart race before a difficult conversation, or our stomach tighten before a presentation. The nervous system acts faster than conscious thought, trying to move us back to safety before we are even aware of what is happening.
The complication is that the nervous system cannot easily not distinguish between real threats and perceived ones. Its job is to err on the side of caution. If there is even a small chance of danger, it would rather overreact than risk our survival. This is why so much of our discomfort feels disproportionate to the actual situation. Our body is mobilizing as though life is at stake, when in reality we may only be facing a moment of uncertainty, criticism, or social risk.
From Discomfort to Perceived Lack of Safety
Discomfort can be seen as a mild form of unsafety and the common strategies we use to regain comfort can be seen as attempts to restore safety. Instinctively, the nervous system pushes us to manipulate our environment so that the sense of risk decreases. From an evolutionary point of view, this focus on shaping the outside world makes perfect sense. When our ancestors faced a hungry sabertooth tiger, survival depended on removing the external threat, either by fighting it off or by escaping. In both cases, the danger was neutralized through action directed outward. So it is no surprise that our instinctive behavior in moments of perceived threat still urges us to change the outside world. Two common modern expressions of this are appeasing and fixing. Appeasing seeks to create safety by pleasing others, softening conflict, or avoiding rejection. Fixing seeks to create safety by controlling outcomes, solving problems prematurely, or eliminating uncertainty. Both strategies are clever nervous system adaptations, designed to reduce the inner unease by reshaping the outer world.
The difficulty is that in today’s world most of the threats we face are not external dangers that can be removed, but social and relational challenges interpreted by our nervous system as unsafe. A tense meeting, a disappointed look from a superior, or the fear of making a mistake does not put our survival at risk, yet the body often responds as if it did. The nervous system cannot easily distinguish between life-threatening danger and emotional discomfort, so it mobilizes fight, flight, or freeze even when what we are facing is criticism, uncertainty, or rejection. In these cases, the attempt to shape the outside world only brings temporary relief. Sooner or later, conflict, uncertainty, and disappointment return. The more we try to eliminate them, the more fragile our sense of safety becomes.
The more effective path is not to keep removing external causes for discomfort, but to retrain the nervous system to recognize that we are still safe even when we do not like a situation. This requires developing the capacity to hold unease without reacting as though our life depends on it. We may feel tension, vulnerability, or dissatisfaction, but these states are not equivalent to danger. When we learn to distinguish between discomfort and actual threat, we open the possibility of remaining grounded in situations where our nervous system once would have pushed us to control, appease, or escape. In doing so, we shift from external control to internal regulation, which is the foundation of resilience and authentic leadership.
Fight, Flight, and Freeze: Primal Responses to Unsafety
The strategies of appeasing and fixing are modern refinements of ancient survival responses. For thousands of years, humans relied on three automatic patterns to deal with danger: fight, flight, and freeze. Fight mobilized us to confront threats head-on. Flight gave us the speed to escape. Freeze immobilized us, either to avoid detection or to brace for impact. These responses are still with us today, and in moments of acute danger, they appear in their purest form.
Yet most of the threats we face in modern life are not lions in the tall grass but psychological and social challenges. We are not at risk of death when we receive negative feedback, but our nervous system may still respond as though we are. As a result, fight, flight, and freeze manifest in subtler, socially acceptable ways that dominate our daily behavior.
Modern Expressions of the Primal Responses
In contemporary settings, the fight response often looks like control, defensiveness, or perfectionism. A leader may insist on micromanaging every detail of a project, not because their team is incapable but because their nervous system equates uncertainty with danger. Someone receiving critical feedback may respond with defensiveness, pushing back not out of reasoned disagreement but because the body perceives vulnerability as a threat. Perfectionism, too, is fight energy turned inward, an attempt to battle against the possibility of failure before it arrives.
Flight in modern life appears as avoidance or distraction. Conflict avoidance is perhaps the clearest example. A manager who cannot tolerate the discomfort of confrontation may sidestep difficult conversations, allowing problems to fester beneath the surface. Others escape into busyness, keeping themselves constantly occupied so they do not have to sit with the unease of stillness. Distraction through technology, entertainment, or even overworking are all forms of flight. Appeasing is a particularly relational form of flight. Rather than running away physically, the person runs toward compliance, softening themselves to neutralize the risk of disapproval.
Freeze remains close to its original form but manifests today in emotional shutdown, indecision, and procrastination. A leader facing a high-stakes decision may feel paralyzed, unable to act for fear of making the wrong choice. An employee in a stressful meeting may go silent, not because they have nothing to add but because their nervous system has pulled them into immobility. Procrastination, too, is a freeze response in disguise, the nervous system protecting the person from discomfort by preventing forward motion.
The Introduction of Fawn
While fight, flight, and freeze describe the primal responses, many psychologists and trauma theorists have highlighted a fourth: the fawn response. Fawn is best understood as a relational adaptation of flight. Instead of withdrawing, the nervous system tries to escape danger by appeasing. The logic is simple: if I make myself agreeable, non-threatening, or useful, the perceived threat will not harm me. This pattern is common in social and organizational life, where being seen as easy to work with is often rewarded. Yet it comes at the cost of authenticity. Leaders who habitually appease may keep harmony in the short term but lose respect in the long term. Individuals who suppress their voice to avoid conflict may remain safe from rejection but feel unseen and unfulfilled.
Beyond Leaving the Comfort Zone
Much of popular advice around growth emphasizes leaving the comfort zone. While this phrase is well-intentioned, it can be misleading. The nervous system does not respond well to abrupt leaps into perceived danger. If we push too far beyond what feels safe, the nervous system is likely to rebel, pulling us back with heightened fight, flight, or freeze responses. This can not only be counterproductive, it will also reinforce old fears rather than transcending them.
A more sustainable approach is gradual expansion of the comfort zone. By taking small, manageable steps into discomfort, paired with awareness and reflection, we teach the nervous system that unease can be tolerated. Each successful step broadens the territory of what feels safe, without overwhelming the system. This is why a person who has never spoken publicly might begin with sharing a thought in a small meeting before addressing a larger audience. The nervous system learns safety through experience, not through force and not through willpower. Expanding the comfort zone gradually respects this truth.
Learning to Become Comfortable with Discomfort
The ability to remain present in discomfort is not innate. It is cultivated through awareness, acceptance, and practice. Awareness allows us to recognize discomfort as a nervous system message rather than an external truth. Acceptance invites us to allow the unease without rushing to resolve it. Over time, this builds tolerance, and the nervous system begins to learn that discomfort itself is not dangerous.
For leaders, this capacity is particularly vital. A leader who can remain grounded in discomfort models resilience for their team. They can navigate ambiguity without rushing into control, hold difficult conversations without appeasing, and sit with conflict without retreating. This creates psychological safety, because when leaders stay present, teams sense that the environment is not as threatening as their nervous systems might predict.
On a personal level, becoming comfortable with discomfort opens the path to growth. Every expansion of the comfort zone requires moving through unease. By recognizing that we are safe in the unease, instead of fleeing from it, we rewrite the nervous system’s predictions. We replace outdated fear with new experiences of safety and capability. Discomfort becomes a signal of growth rather than a sign of danger.
In the end, the invitation is not to eliminate discomfort, nor to suppress it or to leap recklessly beyond it. The invitation is to walk with it, to expand slowly and intentionally, and to listen to what the nervous system is trying to tell us without letting it dictate our choices. Comfort keeps us where we are. Discomfort, embraced with awareness, leads us toward who we might become.