In a world often filled with overwhelming information and daily distractions, the speaker, Hannah, discusses a common tendency to avoid uncomfortable feelings. She reflects on how people often turn away from distressing realities like global conflicts, environmental issues, and social injustices for self-preservation. Hannah explains that busy lifestyles and the pressure to succeed can cause people to detach from their emotions, deeming them unproductive and unnecessary. Yet, she emphasizes the importance of acknowledging these emotions instead of seeking comfort in a false sense of indifference.

By examining societal expectations and personal anecdotes, Hannah reveals that masking discomfort to fit societal norms leads to a lack of authenticity. Suppressing vulnerabilities results in neutrality and disempowers individuals from addressing personal feelings and broader injustices. She argues that embracing emotions, despite societal preferences for seamless appearances and perfection, is crucial for personal growth and social activism. Hannah's insightful narrative underscores the idea that experiencing emotions fully fosters genuine connections and motivates societal change.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. suppress [səˈprɛs] - (verb) - To consciously hold back or inhibit impulses, thoughts, or emotions. - Synonyms: (restrain, stifle, repress)

I believe that many of us tend to avoid feeling our uncomfortable emotions, and I believe that we live in a world that desperately needs more people to take discomfort by the horns of I want to talk today about why we suppress uncomfortable feelings.

2. indifference [ɪnˈdɪfərəns] - (noun) - Lack of interest, concern, or sympathy towards something. - Synonyms: (apathy, unconcern, detachment)

Training ourselves not to feel is not a good thing. It results in numbness, neutrality, or indifference.

3. internalized [ɪnˈtɜːrnəlaɪzd] - (verb) - The process of incorporating attitudes, beliefs, or standards of others into one's own identity or behavior. - Synonyms: (absorbed, accepted, adopted)

And with intense study schedules or nine to five jobs, we've internalized an idea of success where a productive day has to produce some kind of tangible outcome.

4. conform [kənˈfɔːrm] - (verb) - To comply with standards, rules, or laws; to behave according to socially accepted conventions or standards. - Synonyms: (comply, adapt, follow)

Thirdly, we buckle up discomfort because of our desire to socially conform and fit in on social media.

5. deluded [dɪˈluːdɪd] - (verb) - To mislead the mind or judgment of; to deceive or persist in erroneous belief. - Synonyms: (deceived, misled, fooled)

It's much more comfortable to delude ourselves into the easy trap of there's nothing I can really do, so I'm not going to waste time being sad about it.

6. scapegoat [ˈskeɪpˌgoʊt] - (noun) - A person or thing carrying the blame for others. - Synonyms: (fall guy, victim, martyr)

What's really much scarier to me is not fully living, silencing ourselves, and opting out of experiences because we let other people navigate our lives.

7. desperately [ˈdɛspərətli] - (adverb) - In a way that shows despair, having an urgent need or desire. - Synonyms: (urgently, frantically, seriously)

I believe that we live in a world that desperately needs more people to take discomfort by the horns of I want to talk today about why we suppress uncomfortable feelings.

8. perfectionists [pərˈfɛkʃənɪsts] - (noun) - People who refuse to accept any standard short of perfection. - Synonyms: (idealists, exacting, purists)

Constantly needing to make investments in our futures, we become workaholic perfectionists.

9. abandon [əˈbændən] - (verb) - To give up completely (a course of action, practice, or way of thinking). - Synonyms: (relinquish, forsake, leave)

By consciously trying to resist the notion that it's unproductive to feel, and by abandoning the idea that I have to outwardly present myself as being perfectly okay all the time, when in reality I'm not, I've understood that most of the time, emotional collapse actually needs to happen before I can feel okay again.

10. empowering [ɪmˈpaʊərɪŋ] - (adjective) - Giving someone the authority or power to do something; feeling empowered. - Synonyms: (enabling, authorizing, bolstering)

There's nothing more rewarding, empowering, or exhilarating than fighting for something you believe in.

The Positive Power of Discomfort - Hannah Katelijne Hirson - TEDxUWCRCN

When was the last time that you changed the channel on the TV? Or you scrolled past a news story on your social media because it was just too depressing? When was the last time that something upsetting happened in your personal life, but you conveniently found a distraction? Or you convinced yourself that you never really cared in the first place? I'm tempted to do these things a little too often, and I'm sure that you are too. My name is Hannah, I'm 19 years old and I have a life philosophy I want to share with you. I believe that many of us tend to avoid feeling our uncomfortable emotions, and I believe that we live in a world that desperately needs more people to take discomfort by the horns of I want to talk today about why we suppress uncomfortable feelings, why embracing them actually makes for a more meaningful human experience, and why actively listening to discomfort is crucial for resisting injustice and driving positive change in the world.

I'll begin by looking at three reasons why we don't feel our uncomfortable feelings. The first is in the context of hearing and engaging with inequality and oppression worldwide. This is extremely overwhelming. Let's return to that time when you scroll past a depressing news notification. It's mentally taxing to process these scary realities. From wars across the globe to school shootings and climate change, there really is too much to take in, so we seek to block it out as a form of self protection. That's why we scroll past. It's easier to engage with more cheerful media. It's so much easier to be indifferent to social, environmental and political injustices. It's much more comfortable to delude ourselves into the easy trap of there's nothing I can really do, so I'm not going to waste time being sad about it, or worst of all, to stop caring at all.

The second reason why we don't feel our uncomfortable feelings is that the system we live in is not built for sensitivity. There's just no time in our hectic hustle culture to honour what we're feeling. And with intense study schedules or nine to five jobs, we've internalized an idea of success where a productive day has to produce some kind of tangible outcome. Constantly needing to make investments in our futures, we become workaholic perfectionists. Study to get into a good university, to get a good degree, to get a good job, to earn a good salary, work, work, and work. And of course, we have to survive. If we take a slow day off to look after our mental health, we might miss a deadline or we might get fired and life is really unforgiving I know I'm definitely guilty of thinking along these lines. We're conditioned not to invest time in our mental health or to process our emotions about the world's problems because we're just too busy. We come to believe that it's a waste of time to be present and to feel because these things don't produce a tangible outcome, they're not productive.

Thirdly, we buckle up discomfort because of our desire to socially conform and fit in on social media. We see the perfect pictures that people paint of their lives, and it really appears as though everybody is thriving all the time. Women can quickly lose respect if they share something that is imperfect and toxic. Masculinity makes men see their vulnerabilities as imperfections and weaknesses. So we started creating happiness with perfection. We become less comfortable with our own imperfections, and we beat ourselves up for not having life all figured out because we're convinced that everyone else does. I believe this is mirrored in our real lives, too. We're very happy to show off our best moments, and although we all have them, we keep our unpleasant emotions and experiences hidden.

Society doesn't teach us that uncomfortable feelings like grief, anxiety, and fear are valuable. Instead, we grow up labeling them as negative, which implies that it's bad or dislikable to feel them. We want to be liked and we want to be respected. So subconsciously we think, surely if I seem okay all the time, then people will like me. Surely if I stamp on everything that makes me an imperfect and messy human being, then I will fit in. I remember the low confidence I had in the early years of secondary school. I was struggling with my mental health and constantly comparing myself to those who I perceived as perfect. It was such a toxic environment that I stayed really quiet, going by the rule of if I speak, then I might be judged. So I won't speak at all. This meant sacrificing what I thought when someone did something I fundamentally disagreed with, or even if they said something that directly disrespected me. My priority was to socially survive. So without realizing, I put limits on how authentic I was being, brushing aside what upset me, including my worries about the world, my painful climate anxiety. I didn't want to be made fun of for being dramatic or overly sensitive or attention seeking. So I tried my very best not to display any emotion. It wasn't cool to care, so I didn't whether we avoid feeling our uncomfortable feelings because we're overwhelmed by the state of the world, because we're trapped in busy hustle culture, or because we're just really scared of being judged, and we want to be socially perfect.

Training ourselves not to feel is not a good thing. It results in numbness, neutrality, or indifference. And I find all three of these pretty worrying, both when I identified them in myself and in other people. This is because of one main reason. Being indifferent removes the drive to stand up against what we think is wrong. People who have numbed their emotions are not going to be fully connected to what they feel is injust, and therefore they're not going to choose to be vocal against it. For example, linking back to hustle culture if you don't think you have the time to care about a conflict because you need to make more and more money, even though you already have enough, then you're unlikely to go to a protest to resist your government from funding that conflict. If you don't want to be judged for caring, then you probably won't do a presentation at your school about how yet another oil field is being constructed and it's endangering the future of the planet. If you turn a blind eye to racism because it's emotionally easier for you than recognizing that maybe you play a role in the problem and have work to do on yourself, then you probably won't stand up against racism when you see it. I don't think it's healthy to spiral down into doom about everything that's oppressive and destructive in the world, because that's a lot.

But blocking emotions about it leads to not taking action, which I think is worse than feeling a little bit of discomfort and then doing something about it anyway, at some point, I experienced a shift in what I allowed myself to feel. I started to understand what my mum used to tell me when I was angry or sad as a child. She'd say, just sit with it. This means giving space for discomfort to arise and allowing it to remain on the surface, because that's all that emotions really want from you, and then they're going to evaporate by themselves. The problem is that we tend to distract ourselves, whether on social media by watching Netflix, or through more harmful habits such as substance abuse. Sit with your emotions is both the most irritating piece of advice you've ever heard, I know, but it's also the most effective investment you could ever make in your mental health and self growth. It sounds so simple, but people don't do it because it's not simple at all. In fact, self growth is ugly and highly uncomfortable. It's not nearly as romantic as it seems.

For me, sitting with it looks like curling up in a ball in my bed and crying big, loud tears. It looks like writing down my insecurities and screaming angry thoughts, taking time to be scared about what I see on the news. It's always difficult in these specific moments to recognize that the pain is valuable because it's not fun in the moment while you're feeling it, but by consciously trying to resist the notion that it's unproductive to feel, and by abandoning the idea that I have to outwardly present myself as being perfectly okay all the time, when in reality I'm not, I've understood that most of the time, emotional collapse actually needs to happen before I can feel okay again.

The first thing that I've learned from leaning into discomfort is that at its core, being human is about experiencing emotions. There is no such thing as a good or a bad one. There's only a spectrum. On one end you have the uncomfortable, and on the other end you have the comfortable. We try to stay as close as we can to this end, but by avoiding the deep, dark, scary end, we can't reach fully on the nice side either. So I try not to invalidate or numb my lows because I know that then I will be able to reach the highest of highs too. I believe that outside of the context of mental illness, we all have these messy fluctuations of ups and downs on varying scales depending on the person.

We really shouldn't be scared of risk. We shouldn't be scared of challenging experiences or of the judgment of other people. What's really much scary to me is not fully living, silencing ourselves, and opting out of experiences because we let other people navigate our lives. We shouldn't be scared of expressing ourselves. And most of all, we should be scared of not feeling, because to feel is to be alive. But most importantly, what I've learned is that by developing the habit of sitting on the uncomfortable end of my emotional spectrum, I've developed a strong drive to want to do something about the things that make me uncomfortable. In my case, engaging in activism, being able to sit with the discomfort in my personal life.

I've also learned how to open the door to my emotions about the state of the world, which leads to wanting to act. I feel the pain of my generation's endangered future so deeply that I really can't stand the thought of doing nothing. And this started when I was 16. I began actively searching for chances to practice using my voice, such as speaking up at school events. I was trying to care just a little bit less about being judged, to make space for authentic expression of what I cared about. And after all, what was the worst thing that could happen when I had the courage to speak? I wasn't only advocating for what I thought was right in that moment, but I was also proving to myself that what I felt was valid. And each time my comfort zone expanded just a little, like an elastic band.

I've begun to weaken my fear of making mistakes, which was strengthening my ability and my desire to be vocal. Activism can come in so many different forms, and I really believe it can be as small as challenging yourself to have an uncomfortable conversation with a family member who has oppressive views. For me, it took the form of things like joining my local climate action group, campaigning for mandatory climate education at my school, running workshops for ten year olds about the impacts of the fossil fuel industry, participating in countless roadblocks to raise national awareness, and occupying a tree by day and night to prevent it from being cut down by an insurance company.

Building a commitment to viewing had manifested itself, driving me to fight against the things that brought me pain. Now, I'm aware that it's an enormous privilege to be able to engage in activism. It's a privilege to have the education and the financial situation, to have the energy, the physical health, to have freedom of speech, and to have a relatively low risk of violence. But I believe that the many, many, many people who do have those privileges should be using them. Having befriended passionate people in activist circles, I understood that one of the main reasons why they'd chosen to use their privilege to take action was because of the emotion triggered in them by injustice. They'd taken enough time to understand an issue, to be upset by it, and were thereby spurred to do something.

This makes sense, right? Surely no significant change can be made by someone who's keeping their emotions to themselves. I look up to Marcus Dekker. He's the climate activist who taught me how to occupy trees back in 2022. And he's a man with incredible courage to use his inner turmoil to take action, expressing how he feels in a way that makes people like me realize that they feel the same. He's received the longest prison sentence ever given to a nonviolent protestor in the UK, and he now faces deportation from the country. But despite these risks to his freedom, he uses his privilege to speak uncomfortable truths.

The climate crisis is a specific example where I know that people's lack of emotional engagement is a big reason why not enough action is being taken. Because if people really took the time to comprehend their emotions about the possible end to life as we know it, they would be doing something, but it's just too big and too scary. I really understand why people want to keep this door shut. Just imagine if we were all committed to being 100% honest with our feelings about the state of the world. I'm sure that we would all find something that we want to change. The greatest thing about sitting with and acting on discomfort is that it's an upward spiral, like a positive feedback loop, because activism, in turn, has a positive impact on mental health. When we do meaningful things with our time, we feel a sense of purpose which increases our happiness.

There's nothing more rewarding, empowering, or exhilarating than fighting for something you believe in. With a group of people who are feeling the same way. You gain trust in yourself when you align your actions with your values. You care so much less about the perception of other people. When you realize that if you are authentically honoring what you think is right, then it really doesn't matter what they think. You attract authentic friendships. While some existing ones might fall away for the better, you develop an ability to override short term discomfort, knowing that you're practicing a longer term, deeper held belief, your confidence built because learning to stand up for your beliefs teaches you how to stand up for yourself. And this is a muscle that just gets stronger and stronger. So activism benefits my mental health because it serves as an outlet for the uncomfortable emotions of fear and anxiety. It surrounds me with caring, passionate people, and it makes me feel as though I have the power to be a part of the solution.

Ultimately, what I want you to take away from this talk today is that one of the greatest barriers to improving society is a lack of emotional engagement in those who have the privilege to act, but don't. If that is you, I want to encourage you to rethink how you handle your discomfort. It's not to make you think and feel exactly as I do, because we're different people, but instead to make you question whether you justify doing nothing by shutting down the part of you that cares. I implore you to hold on to this softness. Don't let the world harden you, even if you're scared of the overwhelm that might hit, if you sit and process, even if hustle culture convinces you that you just don't have the time, even if you're terrified of judgment. It is so important that you build your tolerance for uncomfortable emotions so that you can act on them and use the skills that you have to make change, whatever that might look like in your community.

It's hard to have the capacity to fully dive into multiple issues, but that's fine. I suggest that you just choose one. Choose one injustice that makes you feel something and start small by educating yourself about it and taking the time to notice what emotional responses arise in you. Then put yourself in the shoes of someone on the front line. Try your very best to abandon your fear of judgment and take action, small or big. Think of discomfort as the fuel for the engine that is taking you to the person that you want to be and to the person that the world so desperately needs. Stop overprotecting yourself from feeling the discomfort of painful realities. Don't turn a blind eye or carry it on as usual, because the truth is that the world is not going to fix itself. Being judged somehow for taking action is better than feeling and doing nothing at all. I promise you that if everyone honoured their discomfort and acted upon it, the world would be a better place. Thank you.

Education, Motivation, Philosophy, Emotional Intelligence, Social Activism, Self-Growth, Tedx Talks