Learning to Sit With It

This week, I had to make a hard and unexpected pivot in my insurance and retirement planning business. A name I had been building under was no longer available, and just like that, I had to shift everything. It wasn’t just a brand update—it was a full reimagining of something I’d poured years into. The stress was real, but what surprised me most was how quickly I wanted to fix it, move on, and avoid sitting in the emotional weight of it all. That moment made me pause—and reflect on just how often we do that in life.

It got me thinking about how we’re taught—often from the earliest moments—to change how we feel. Not to sit with it. Not to understand it. Just to fix it.

And that pattern? It doesn’t go away on its own.

The Conditioning Starts Early

Picture this: a child falls and begins to cry. The adult scoops them up and says, “You’re okay, don’t cry.” Sometimes a toy is handed over, a treat is offered, or attention is quickly shifted elsewhere to cheer them up. These responses come from love—we want to protect children from pain. But underneath the surface, another message is being written: Discomfort should be avoided. Emotions need to be managed or distracted away.

As kids, we’re not taught how to move through a feeling—we’re taught to escape it. And so we grow up into adults who do the same.

When life gets heavy, we reach for whatever will ease the ache:

• A glass of wine to unwind

• A few beers over BBQ to “shake it off”

• Binge-watching shows to drown out anxiety

• Scrolling social media to numb uncertainty

• Diving into work or a project to feel in control

• Reorganizing the house instead of acknowledging a difficult conversation

• Hitting the gym hard to burn through grief without ever naming it

It doesn’t look the same for everyone, but the root is the same: we’ve been conditioned to reach for something—anything—to stop the feeling.

The Problem With Quick Fixes

Now, let’s be clear: there’s nothing inherently wrong with relaxing with friends, watching a show, or getting a workout in. These aren’t bad things. But when we use them to avoid what’s rising inside of us, they become blocks. They stop the emotion from moving through and instead push it down.

And the thing about emotions is—they don’t disappear just because we ignore them.

They linger. They loop. They show up in our sleep, our bodies, our decision-making, our relationships. The energy we didn’t allow ourselves to feel finds another way to be felt—whether we’re ready or not.

When we don’t create space to feel, we lose the chance to process. And when we don’t process, we repeat. That’s the trap of the quick fix.

What If We Just… Felt It?

I know this can sound a little foreign. In a culture that celebrates “pushing through,” what does it even mean to sit with a feeling?

It means we don’t automatically try to silence it. We pause. We notice. We let it exist without rushing to change it.

Emotional discomfort isn’t dangerous—it’s information. Our feelings are messengers. They show us where something matters, where something is off, where something is healing.

You don’t have to solve the emotion to sit with it. You don’t need to understand the full story. You just have to let it rise.

And here’s the wild truth: emotions—when felt—pass. Neuroscience shows that most emotions physically last 90 seconds if we let them move through the body. It’s the resistance, the fear, the mental spiral around them that prolongs the experience.

Feeling isn’t weakness. It’s strength in motion.

The Practice: Repetition and Anchoring

Like anything meaningful, this is a practice. And practice takes repetition. Here are a few ways to begin creating that pause:

• Name it.

  “I feel overwhelmed right now.” “This hurts.”

  Just naming what you feel—even if it’s messy or unsure—is powerful. It brings the emotion into conscious awareness and begins to remove shame from it.

• Anchor into your body.

  Place a hand on your chest or your stomach. Feel your feet on the ground. Take three slow breaths and remind yourself: It’s okay to feel this. I don’t need to fix it.

• Time the pause.

  Before reaching for the glass of wine, the remote, the snack, the busywork—pause for 90 seconds. Set a timer if you need to. Breathe through it and give the emotion a chance to move.

• Let it out somewhere safe.

  Journal. Voice memo. Go for a walk and say what you’re feeling out loud. Sometimes we don’t even know what we’re holding until we give it a space to land.

• Stay curious.

  Instead of asking, “How do I stop feeling this?” try asking, “What might this feeling be asking of me?” You don’t need the answer right away. The point is to stay with it.

You don’t need to do this perfectly. You just need to do it more often.

Emotional tolerance is like muscle memory. The more you practice sitting with your feelings, the less afraid you become of them. And over time, you start to realize that you can hold space for yourself—even in the storm.

Rebuilding the Way We Relate to Emotions

This is what rebuilding with purpose looks like. It’s not just setting goals or planning new directions—it’s learning to stay with ourselves when things feel uncertain.

The emotions that come up during transition, stress, loss, growth—they’re not signs that something’s wrong. They’re signs that something real is happening. They’re invitations to slow down and listen.

I’m not writing this from a place of having mastered it. I’m still learning how to be present with myself in the in-between spaces. But I’ve seen what happens when I don’t run—when I sit, breathe, and let myself be human.

The clarity comes. The energy shifts. And eventually, the next step reveals itself.

We don’t need to race past discomfort to feel okay. We just need to remind ourselves that we’re safe enough to feel it.

Stay With You

So the next time you feel the impulse to “fix” something—pause. Notice what’s really there. See if you can hold it with kindness instead of resistance.

Ask yourself:

• What am I trying not to feel?

• Can I stay with myself for just one more breath?

• What do I need in this moment—really?

This isn’t about avoiding your favorite comforts or never watching another show. It’s about creating space for both comfort and clarity. Feeling and healing.

Discomfort isn’t a detour. It’s often the doorway.

So walk through it. Gently. Repeatedly. Purposefully.

And rebuild from there.

Yours in health,

Dana VanBrimmer, NBC-HWC

Founder, Live & Develop

Live. Develop. Rebuild with Purpose.