Latest / She Rose: Women Who Turned Pain Into Purpose / Learning to Sit With Discomfort During a Long Silence | She Rose
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of loneliness that doesn’t feel like being alone, but rather like waiting in a room where the clock has stopped ticking. It’s not painful at first; it’s just heavy, and you start wondering if anyone else hears the silence too. I want you to take a deep breath with me right now. In through your nose, hold it for a second, and let it out slowly. Good. I know you’re tired. I can hear the fatigue in the way you’re holding your phone, the way your shoulders are up near your ears. You’ve had a long day, and on top of everything else, there’s this quiet space inside you that feels... empty. Or maybe full of things you don’t know how to say yet. We live in a world that is terrified of silence. Think about it. If there’s a lull in conversation, we panic. We fill it with jokes, with small talk, with checking our phones. If there’s a pause in a movie, we think something went wrong. We treat silence like an enemy, like a void that needs to be conquered or filled immediately. But what if silence isn’t empty? What if it’s just... still? I remember sitting in my old office years ago, before I left the corporate mediation world. We would sit across from couples who were trying to work things out. Usually, they couldn’t stop talking. They’d interrupt each other, shout over each other, defend themselves. And I’d say, 'Stop.' Just stop. And the silence would hit them like a wave. At first, it was awkward. Then it was angry. Then, sometimes, it was relief. That silence wasn’t nothing. It was the space where the truth actually lived. They couldn’t hear their own hearts while they were screaming over one another. Let’s sit with that for a second. The discomfort you’re feeling right now, the urge to reach for distraction, the itch to scroll until your thumb hurts—that’s not a flaw in you. It’s a habit. It’s a muscle memory of avoidance. And breaking that habit is going to feel strange. It’s going to feel uncomfortable. But I promise you, it’s also where the healing starts. I want to talk about why we hate the wait so much. For so many of us, especially women, we’ve been taught that if we just do enough, think hard enough, plan perfectly enough, we can control the outcome. We treat life like a project management spreadsheet. Task A leads to Task B, which leads to Success. But real life? Real life doesn’t work like that. Real life has gaps. It has pauses. It has seasons where nothing seems to be happening at all. And that’s terrifying. Because when nothing is happening, we feel powerless. We feel like we’re falling behind. I hear that voice every single day in my inbox. 'I haven’t heard back from them.' 'My business idea hasn’t taken off yet.' 'I’m still hurting from that loss.' It feels like we’re stuck in neutral. And society tells us that being in neutral is failure. It tells us we need to be moving forward, always forward, never standing still. But here is the radical truth I’ve learned: Stillness is not stagnation. Sometimes, the most active thing you can do is simply exist without trying to fix yourself. You know, in the last episode, we talked about folding laundry after crying. Finding peace in the mundane. This is a natural extension of that. It’s about finding peace in the pause. Not the pause between tasks, but the pause in your soul. When you sit with discomfort, you are telling your nervous system that you are safe. You are saying, 'I can handle this feeling. I can handle the uncertainty. I don’t need to run away from myself right now.' It’s a practice of trust. Trust that you will be okay even if you don’t have the answer today. Even if the text message doesn’t come. Even if the job offer falls through. You are more than your productivity. You are more than your results. You are a human being, worthy of rest, worthy of silence, worthy of just being. Let’s get practical for a moment, because I know you. You want steps. You want tools. So here is one. When the silence gets loud, when the anxiety starts to creep in because you don’t know what comes next, I want you to try something simple. Stop trying to solve it. Just name it. Say to yourself, 'I am sitting in the unknown right now.' Say it out loud if you can. 'I am uncomfortable.' 'I am afraid.' 'I am waiting.' Naming the emotion takes the power away from the chaos. It brings it into the light. Remember that phrase I love, 'The crack is where the light gets in.' Your discomfort is the crack. It’s not a sign that you’re broken; it’s a sign that you’re opening up. Opening up to something new, something bigger, something you can’t yet see. I used to mediate disputes where people were stuck in legal limbo. Months of waiting for court dates. Years of waiting for settlements. I saw how that waiting eroded people. They became bitter. They became obsessed with the 'why' and the 'when.' But the ones who survived it, who came out whole? They learned to make tea. They learned to walk in the park. They learned to tend to their gardens while the world decided their fate. They didn’t ignore the problem. They just refused to let the problem consume their entire identity. You can do this. You can tend to your garden while you wait. You can water your plants. You can cook a nice meal. You can call a friend and just talk about the weather. These aren’t distractions from your pain; they are acts of rebellion against the idea that you must suffer actively to be valid. Rest is not surrender. Rest is resistance. It’s a way of saying, 'I will keep living beautifully, even while I figure this out.' I want to touch on the physical side of this, because sitting with discomfort isn’t just a mental exercise. It’s bodily. When we are anxious about the future, our bodies go into fight-or-flight mode. Our hearts race. Our stomachs tighten. We feel like we’re running a marathon even though we’re sitting on the couch. This is because our brains are trying to prepare us for danger. But the danger isn’t a tiger jumping out of the bushes. The danger is ambiguity. Uncertainty. The lack of control. So how do we calm the body down? We use the breath. We use movement. We use sensory grounding. If you’re feeling that tightness in your chest, put your hand on it. Feel the warmth of your palm. Notice the texture of your shirt. Look around the room and find five blue objects. Bring yourself back to the present moment, where you are safe, where you are here, where you are alive. This is harder than it sounds. I know. Because the mind wants to jump to tomorrow, to next week, to next year. It wants to simulate every possible bad outcome. But you don’t live in those simulations. You live in this second. Right now. And in this second, you are breathing. You are reading these words. You are connected to me, even if we’ve never met. There is a community of women doing exactly what you are doing. Sitting with the silence. Choosing presence over panic. It’s okay to be a work in progress. It’s okay to not have it figured out. In fact, it’s probably better that you don’t. Because the moment you think you have it all figured out is the moment you stop growing. Growth happens in the messy middle. In the quiet spaces. In the times when you’re just learning to trust yourself again. So, here is my challenge to you this week. I want you to carve out ten minutes of intentional silence. No music. No podcast. No phone. Just you and the quiet. Sit in a chair. Close your eyes. Let the thoughts come and go like clouds. Don’t chase them. Don’t push them away. Just watch them pass. If it feels boring, good. Boredom is often just discomfort in disguise. If it feels sad, good. Sadness is a signal that you care. If it feels scary, good. Fear means you’re on the edge of something new. Stay with it. Be curious about what arises. What do you notice in your body? What memories surface? What dreams feel distant? Write it down if you want. Or just keep it in your heart. This is your time to reconnect with the deepest part of you, the part that doesn’t need to perform or prove anything. The part that just knows. I believe in you. I believe in your ability to endure this season. I believe that when the noise finally stops, you’ll hear something beautiful. Maybe it’s a whisper. Maybe it’s a song. Maybe it’s just the sound of your own steady heartbeat, reminding you that you are still here. And that is enough. That is more than enough. Before we go, I want to remind you that you are not alone in this. Even in the silence, you are surrounded by love. By history. By possibility. Every woman who came before you sat in her own version of this room. She waited. She wondered. She doubted. But she kept going. And now, she’s cheering for you. She’s proud of you. She sees your strength, even when you can’t see it yourself. So breathe. Again. Deeply. Let it out. Feel your feet on the floor. Feel the air in your lungs. You are grounded. You are held. You are loved. And whatever is coming next, you will meet it with grace. You will meet it with courage. You will meet it with the quiet confidence of someone who knows how to sit with herself. Until next time, take care of your heart. It’s doing its best. I’m Bethany. I’ll be right here next week, sitting with you in the quiet. Take good care of yourself.