Lean In. It Will Only Hurt for a Little While.

Did you know that intense emotions last only about 90 seconds? Learning this was a game-changer for me.

According to neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, when we’re emotionally triggered, a surge of stress chemicals floods the body, creating physical sensations like a racing heart, tense muscles, or a sinking feeling in the gut, which then dissipate in roughly a minute and a half.

After that, the only thing that keeps the discomfort going is our mental engagement—our stories, our spiraling thoughts, our rehearsing of what happened or what “might” happen. I know what that feels like. We all do, right?

Ninety seconds. That’s all.

Which means most of the emotional pain we experience isn’t from the emotion itself—it’s from our mental entanglements with it and our resistance to the pain.

When we don’t want to feel the discomfort . . .

We run.

We avoid.

We distract, numb, manage, or try to “fix.”

If we learn to lean in and stay with the discomfort (without going into mental gymnastics), even for ninety seconds, everything can change. But we don’t do that, do we?

We are wired for pleasure, not pain. God designed our nervous systems to seek safety, comfort, and connection—and to alert us when any of those feel threatened.

So, leaning into discomfort feels counterintuitive. Completely unnatural. Everything inside us screams: Get away! Fix it! Make it stop!

This is part of what psychologists call the “pain-pleasure principle” – our built-in drive to avoid discomfort and move toward relief. It’s not wrong; it’s simply human. The problem comes when that instinct becomes our only strategy.

Because pain—whether emotional, physical, spiritual, or psychological—is part of life. We’ll never be able to avoid it entirely. And anytime we choose to initiate change, heal old wounds, or step into new territory, discomfort is inevitable. So, we do what makes sense—we run.

Unfortunately, running doesn’t heal. It only postpones. And often, it compounds the very pain we are trying to escape.

For most of my life, I ran without even realizing it.

I called it “growth.”

I called it “healing work.”

I even called it “self-care.”

But much of what I was doing was spiritual bypassing—a term I learned from the book Spiritual Bypassing by Robert Augustus Masters. It describes the ways we use spiritual or personal-growth practices to avoid discomfort rather than face it with love and honesty.

For me, bypassing looked like:

I wasn’t leaning in. I was running from my own heart. With every sprint, I unintentionally reinforced the early beliefs I learned through childhood trauma—that I was unworthy, unimportant, and unsafe.

I didn’t know it then, but avoiding my discomfort was treating myself the way others had treated me—with disregard. In the name of healing, I was abandoning myself.

Reading “Spiritual Bypassing” was a turning point for me. Finally realizing that I had spent years avoiding myself in the name of personal growth and self-care was heartbreaking. How had I not seen this before?

My lifelong pattern for managing discomfort was to pray harder, distract myself with work or other immediate concerns, numb myself with food, or use various practices to try to make the feeling go away as quickly as possible. I thought I was helping myself. This book helped me see that I was only avoiding myself and not attending to deeper needs.

As a counselor and a coach, I’ve learned that we all carry trauma to one degree or another, and it always shows up in the body. In his book, “The Body Keeps the Score” Bessel van der Kolk tells us that trauma isn’t just a story from the past — it lives in the body as sensations, impulses, and automatic reactions. Healing begins not by thinking our way out of it, but by learning to safely feel and befriend the physical experience our bodies have been carrying.

Once I recognized what I was doing, I began to take more time to just feel my feelings, to tune into what my body and my heart were trying to tell me. I began to see that my mind was deceiving me in the name of self-protection. When I’d wake up with a knot in my gut, instead of dismissing it or doing something to make the feeling go away, I’d sit with myself, quietly asking, “Ok belly . . . what do you need me to know? What are you trying to tell me?”

I learned to listen, and little by little I began discovering new, and sometimes painful things I had been avoiding. I learned to care for myself in entirely new ways and felt an internal calmness taking hold where anxiety had been my ever-present companion.

When I learned the 90-second rule about intense emotions, it became easier to stay with myself when hard things came to the surface. I couldn’t control what came up but knowing it would only last a short time (unless I let my thoughts take over) made it so much easier to hang in there until the intensity dissipated.

These experiences taught me something I now teach my clients: the feelings we fear most are often the ones carrying the deepest invitations for growth and transformation.

Fear is a perfect example.

Fear isn’t the enemy. Fear is normal whenever we step into something new. It’s simply a sign that our nervous system is trying to protect us. The problem comes when fear becomes a dictator instead of a companion.

And nothing strengthens fear more than resisting it. Resisting makes fear louder. Leaning in—gently, compassionately—helps fear settle.

The principle of leaning in also applies to:

Leaning in doesn’t mean wallowing or drowning in emotion. It simply means pausing long enough to meet yourself with compassion instead of avoidance.

When we don’t understand the process of change—and when we believe discomfort is dangerous—we will sabotage ourselves without even realizing it.

We avoid the very experiences that could grow us into the person God designed us to be. We pray for transformation but then run from the discomfort that transformation requires.

And so, as strange as it sounds, we must learn to overcome fear again and again (each time we start something new)—not by fighting it, but by befriending it.

God uses our challenges to prepare us for our purpose. He uses discomfort to stretch, strengthen, and mature us so we can steward the dreams He has placed within us. He wants more for us than we can imagine. But He never forces us. He waits for our yes.

Over the years I’ve come to believe that the only way to move through discomfort with grace is to develop a loving, secure relationship with yourself.

Not a self-help relationship.

Not a self-improvement relationship.

A self-compassion relationship.

This is why Jesus’ commandment matters so deeply: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:30–31) Most of us try desperately to love others while disliking or abandoning ourselves. Unfortunately, we then see others through the same lens of “not enough” that we use on ourselves.

Loving yourself is not self-centered. It’s actually a Christ-centered principal, because it honors the way He designed you. When we learn to love ourselves, loving others comes more naturally.

And when you learn to stay with yourself in discomfort—rather than running away—you experience the kind of lasting transformation your heart truly desires. No tool, technique, or spiritual bypassing practice can offer you that kind of love.

Here are a few simple practices to help you “lean in”:

1. The 90-Second Pause

Here’s what leaning in can look like in real time:

When discomfort arises, don’t run.

Don’t fix.

Don’t analyze.

Just pause.

Breathe.

Feel the sensations in your body.

Remind yourself: This wave will pass.

2. Name What You Feel

Not to control it.

But to acknowledge it.

“I’m feeling anxious.”

“I sense grief rising.”

“I’m overwhelmed right now.”

Naming an emotion reduces its intensity.

3. Offer Yourself Compassion

Place a hand on your heart and offer yourself some kindness.

“I’m here.”

“It’s okay to feel this.”

“You’re safe with me.”

4. Ask, “What do you need right now?”

Sometimes the answer is rest.

Sometimes it’s a walk.

Sometimes it’s simply to be heard.

Your inner world softens when it feels seen. These practices seem small, but they lay the foundation for profound, lasting change.

If you’ve been longing to understand why you stall in your growth, why fear keeps resurfacing, or why you can’t seem to “stay with yourself” when things become difficult—this is the work we do in Anatomy of Change (AOC).

AOC teaches you how to:

This 6-week online course is the culmination of everything I’ve learned—professionally, spiritually, and personally—about how God designed us to grow and change. In AOC, you will learn how to “lean in,” meeting yourself with compassion instead of judgment and presence instead of avoidance.

If this blog stirred something in you…

If you’re curious about how you might be avoiding discomfort in the name of self-care…

If you’re ready to build a relationship with yourself that supports deep, lasting change…

I’d love to walk with you.

👉 Join the waitlist for Anatomy of Change — opening again this winter.

👉 While you wait, download my free training: Become the News Anchor.

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Healing isn’t about pushing through. It’s about leaning in.

And I promise—it will only hurt for a little while.