Comfort: What is it? Especially if you’ve never known it.

30 Apr Comfort: What is it? Especially if you’ve never known it.

Comfort is one of those things we take for granted, unless we have no idea what it is.

That is the case with so many people who have learned that it’s not safe to reach out to other people for reassurance or comfort.

For them reaching out has meant embarrassment, shame, humiliation.  In other words curling up inside, withdrawing as far away from the outside world as possible.

This is brought home to me over and over as I listen to people.

 “I’ve never known comfort.  I have no idea what that is.”

The person’s words fell into the space between us.  Stunned by the brutal honesty we both sat there in silence.

Sitting here now, writing this, I continue to feel the power of that moment.

What is this basic, elemental experience of comfort that is often so foreign to people?   How do we regain the capacity to find comfort in life when there is no prior experience?

And is comfort the same as pleasure?  Where are they similar? Where are they different?

I’ve been sitting with this question, brought to the foreground by this powerful moment with another person.  Yet, the question has been lurking in the background for years now.

 There are many wonderful people with suggestions of what can bring comfort.  I’ve been one of them.  In fact, in the Becoming Safely Embodied groups I have a handout “What To Do When You Can’t Think Of Anything To Do.”

Those are actually good suggestions and they work as exercises to shift energy and move away from difficult and complicated internal material.

Yet it doesn’t address the question of comfort.

The Encarta world dictionary defines comfort as:

1.  state of being comfortable:  conditions in which somebody feels physically relaxed
2. comfortable thing: something that makes you feel physically relaxed
3. relief from pain: relief from pain or anxiety.

Synonyms:  well-being, ease, luxury, coziness, relief, security, relaxation, contentment.

Searching the web brought me to an interesting conclusion.  No one really knows what to say about it.  There’s a lot about comfort when someone dies.  But that’s not what I was looking for.  This state of needing/wanting comfort is best explored from the perspective of attachment theory of relationships.

Secure Base

The attachment/relational idea of comfort comes from what Mary Ainsworth called having a Secure Base.  This secure base comes from connections with others that create security, have us feel emotionally safe in all our vulnerabilities, reassuring us that everything will be okay, that we’re not alone.

Having this secure base to return to allows us to reach out beyond the comfort zone to explore the world all while knowing we can always return to zone of comfort when we get too anxious, upset, distressed.

Here’s a slide I use to describe this in the Becoming Safely Attached Workshops:

Replacement Strategies

Usually what we find are the “replacement”  strategies  like food, sex, alcohol, sugar, over exercising, shopping.    It happens a bit like this: you feel some anxiety, or worry, or stress.  We all have a favorite strategy we turn to when we need to calm our nervous system.  What do you do?

The impulse to reach out for comfort is there.

More than likely, though, after years of reaching out for comfort from another person and instead of getting comfort, ease, relief (as the dictionary says) you get  horrible pit-falling disappointment that feels like your soul is getting annihilated.

The pain is way out of our capacity to tolerate.  We sink, cringe, hide, disappear — do anything to get away from that horrible feeling.

Out of that distress our replacement strategy is born.   Over time we don’t even reach for people, for connection, we know the replacement strategy will be there.

Someone I talked to said it concisely.  I don’t even think of other people.  I know that food will be there.

There’s the truth.  Honest.  Direct.  Blunt.  For many of us the “replacement strategy” is there, something we know how to get.  We probably didn’t know how to ask for love, reassurance, warmth, safety.

Simple solutions aren’t always that simple:

“Take a bath” – well what if you live in a place that doesn’t have a bath?  What if seeing your body creates such negative, self critical destructive impulses?  What if you can’t fit in a bath?

“Go for a walk”  – what if your body hurts so much you can’t move easily?

“Talk to a friend” – what if your friends are all busy with their own lives, their own dramas?  What if you haven’t cultivated friendships that are mutual, where there’s room for both of you?  What if it’s been more comfortable for you to be with people who aren’t comfortable with feelings, emotions?

What then?

The easiest place to practice is to explore the simplest experiences of being alive.

Hard, when what we actually, secretly wish for, is human contact, the warmth of reassurance, the security of knowing we’re loved no matter what.

Yet, here’s the thing.  If we practice these small steps and learn we are grounded here in the moment — well then, it becomes easier to stay present with our needs and wants — and present to with the other person at the same time.

The practice of disentangling our replacement strategies involves letting go of the stories of our lives, returning to the basic, factual experience of being here.  Now.  Dropping the content that we are so effortlessly attaching to every moment.

We have to let go of the stories of our lives, returning to the basic, factual experience of being here.  Dropping the content that we so effortlessly attach to every moment.

This is such a big topic.  The Embodiment section below gives a beginning practice.

I also wrote a blog piece about how I made the connection inside myself with the grace of Pasha. 

Embodiment Practice

One practice would be to focus on one of your senses (ex: hearing, touch, smell.)  Let that sense expand out to make contact outside your skin.

Right now I’m sitting outside.  It’s still a bit spring –windy.  I hear the sound of the wind blowing.  Focusing only on that I allow myself to “ride” the sound of the winds blowing, experiencing the waves of sound.  The wind dies down and I hear the delightful chirping of the birds.  My senses expand beyond my inner world, reaching out, hearing the chirping, the wind.   A deep breath happens of its own accord.  I feel settled. Quiet.

Another practice:  for those of you who have cats, dogs, or other pets:  What happens in your body when you pet them?  Is the pet soft/hard/wirey?  Is your pet warm?  Notice the moment when you touch?  What happens inside you?    Click here to read about my experience learning this with Pasha, my maltese.