Embracing Discomfort?
Why yoga involves making peace with awkward feelings
What gets you out of your comfort zone? To what extent is that the point of yogic practice? If it’s a factor, what distinguishes yoga from self-flagellation? 😰
I discussed this last week on retreat with Adam Keen, whose teaching highlights the importance of “not battling constantly against yourself”. That led us to reflect on how priorities have changed over the centuries, while also noting some subtle continuities.
The early inspiration for yoga was ascetic. Renouncers sat like a stone or performed tough austerities, such as standing on one leg or holding arms aloft for years on end. This mentality shaped Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra, which says a “steady and comfortable” posture depends on “cessation of effort or the [meditative] attainment of infinity”.1
The original commentary on the next sūtra spells out why: “As a result of mastering posture, one is not troubled by pairs of opposites such as cold and heat”.2 Therefore, detaching from painful sensations makes it easier to sit in a comfortable way. Another recent article explored potential benefits to this sort of logic. However, deliberately engaging with discomfort might well sound off-putting.
I’ve shared a few thoughts on alternative options in this video. Rather than pushing oneself too hard, it might be uncomfortable to face one’s limitations, or gaps in one’s knowledge – or any other all-too-human imperfection. Scroll down for a transcript, along with more details about where it comes from.
“You know, for me, the thing to be really getting out of my comfort zone and trying to become more comfortable with is this uncertainty of everything, and the impossibility of having answers to all of these questions. And so if that’s the only discomfort I inflict on my students – that I ask them too many questions – then I’m OK with that, I think… Maybe, but I guess not everybody likes that. So even that is something I might need to consider. But from my point of view I’ve found that it is an uncomfortable place to not know, and to not really have the prospect of definitive solutions, and, in fact, to be invited to consider that the not knowing is the ultimate knowing. And to keep not knowing until you’re totally cool with not knowing is the path of yoga. That is kind of what the Upaniṣads started out saying, and we could do quite well to go back there.”
This clip is an excerpt from my year-long course, The Path of Knowledge. It was part of a discussion on therapeutic methods (in module 18). If you’d like to learn more, I’ll be opening the course to new participants in 2026. For now, you can sign up here to stay informed about the launch, as well as hearing first about early-bird rates.
I also run separate discussions on yoga philosophy – our next monthly session is on Sunday, December 14 (at 7:00 pm, UK time). You can find out more about what we explore and join us here, as well as getting access to previous recordings.
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Yoga Sūtra 2.46-47, trans. Mallinson and Singleton (in Roots of Yoga, 2017).
Commentary on Yoga Sūtra 2.48, trans. Mallinson and Singleton (in Roots of Yoga, 2017).