When we are faced with a discomfort of one kind or another, we usually seek to alleviate the discomfort. We might do this consciously, or without being particularly aware of what we are doing. We may be using perfectly acceptable activities to lighten our load, without being aware that's what's going on in our lives.
This can easily lead to what I call the Comfort Spiral. It begins with some kind of struggle, hardship, disapointment, discomfort. It might simply be the tiredness of a long, hard day at work. Those come by most of us fairly often. Nothing really bad happened, it was just long and hard. There is the discomfort.
We go home, maybe after an hour of commuting on the highways and biways. Again, this is nothing terribly unusual. But there is just a little more discomfort. When we arrive home, there is the package of Oreo Cookies on the counter. That looks good. We grab a couple cookies, and go on to change out of the career clothes and into something a little less formal to do the work around the house.
Okay, so far, no problem. But the cookies don't really address the problem of a long hard day at work, and a long commute. We grab the cookies because, well, because we like Oreos. And that's it. That's the comfort mechanism. We engage in something we like (eating a couple Oreos) to counteract the discomfort that comes from the workday and commute.
If we never proceed beyond a couple of Oreos, maybe that's not a big deal. But far too many of us go well beyond the two cookies. That's because our comfort mechanism doesn't really deal with the source of our discomfort. The only discomfort that food truly cures is physical hunger. But many of us use food to try to cure all the discomforts of our lives.
So we start with a discomfort, and we respond with a non-destructive and seemingly helpful behavior. So far, so good. What happens though, if we develop a pattern of this behavior? Things can spiral out of control.
We had the long hard day at work, and enjoyed a couple of cookies. Action - Reaction. But the reaction did not deal with the root causes of the discomfort. After the pleasure of the cookies has worn off, it may still be a long hard day. Maybe things at home aren't all that great, either. So some might grab a couple more cookies. After all, there is real pleasure in eating those little devils. And during the consumption of them, the pleasure is outweighing the discomfort.
Eventually, however, something new might creep into the equation. Because the cookies don't actually fix the problem, because the problem continues, an unidentified frustration can creep into the whole situation. That frustration is that, doggone it, eating this stuff isn't actually helping anything! So now a new discomfort has crept into the equation. We originally had the long hard day at work and the long commute. Now we have added in a frustration. Frustration is uncomfortable. And we know how to deal with discomfort--grab a couple Oreos!
Eventually, a completely appropriate behavior, eating an Oreo, becomes a problem. We are trying to use something we enjoy to overwhelm our feelings of discomfort. Over time, we can let that get completely out of control.
The illustration shows how the process grows. We start in the center with some kind of discomfort. We respond to the discomfort with something we like, something that makes us feel good, a pleasure mechanism. Maybe that works for a while, but the discomfort is still there, so we repeat the pleasure mechanism. If we begin to feel the frustration or discouragement because the pleasure mechanism didn't actually fix the problem, we have added to our discomfort level.
Unfortunately, we are most likely to continue to use the pleasure mechanisms we are accustomed to using. That means that increased discomfort is likely to result in more Oreos.
More soon . . .
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