The Value of Discomfort

I'm learning how to value discomfort.

In the past, my response to a few days of feeling generally grouchy, lazy, listless, cranky, icky, or any other kind of bad state that ends in y was generally "what's wrong with me?" followed quickly by "what can I do to escape it."

I still don't particularly enjoy finding myself in those states, but what I'm learning is that its almost always because of something deeper that I'm not aware of. Just like nerves use a pain response to alert us to dangers we might not otherwise be aware of, discomfort has been pointing me to internal and external factors I wasn't even really paying attention to. Such as:

1. I've had lingering little financial odds and ends that I've needed to take care of all month.
2. My room was a total mess. Papers, books, and clothes were scattered around in little piles, the result of too much traveling and not enough shelf space.
3. I haven't been exercising, or even eating particularly healthily lately.
4. It had been a while since I'd consistently done something really creative (music, writing, etc)
5. Most importantly, I haven't been regularly taking time and space to just be alone with God and with myself.

In other words, even though I was "keeping on top of everything", my life was increasingly out of balance, and it was all manifesting in general feelings of "ick". I'm glad I've started learning to listen to those feelings though, rather than trying harder and harder to avoid them by escaping into games or tv or naps or whatever. I've been busy the past few days, but I feel better than I have in a while.