Coaching practices for Every Time I Get Near a Certain Kind of Suffering in This Practice I Notice Myself Flinch and Want to Stop or Look Away and Rather Than Treating That Recoil as Me Failing at it I Want to Follow it Because it Seems to Be Pointing Right at Where I'm Most Armored
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Every Time I Get Near a Certain Kind of Suffering in This Practice I Notice Myself Flinch and Want to Stop or Look Away and Rather Than Treating That Recoil as Me Failing at it I Want to Follow it Because it Seems to Be Pointing Right at Where I'm Most Armored, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- Every time I get near a certain kind of suffering in this practice I notice myself flinch and want to stop or look away
- The moment a hard feeling rises I clamp down against it and brace, trying to push it away
- A hard moment just hit and I can feel the spiral starting
- I’m stuck at one of two extremes with hard feelings
- The second I feel the pain coming on I tense up and brace against it in dread, and I can feel that very fear cranking it louder
Practices that may help
- Investigate resistance to the practice honestly
The impulse not to breathe in suffering is information about where your self-protective contraction lives.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Expand into difficult feelings rather than contracting away
When discomfort arrives, consciously make room for it rather than tightening against it.
Psychological Flexibility, Made Practical - The self-compassion break
A three-step phrase you say in a hard moment: this is suffering, suffering is human, may I be kind to myself.
Self-Compassion, Made Practical - Mindful awareness of suffering
Hold painful feelings in balanced awareness — neither suppressing them nor being swept away by them.
Self-Compassion, Made Practical - Approach the pain sensation with curiosity, not bracing
Turn toward the pain with the attitude of a curious scientist rather than a fearful sufferer.
Somatic Tracking, Made Practical - Meeting emotion in open presence
When a difficult emotion arises during open monitoring, stay in the witnessing position rather than contracting or escaping.
Open Monitoring Meditation, Made Practical - Debrief every discomfort practice
After any voluntary hardship, reflect on what it taught you — not just that you survived.
Voluntary Discomfort: The Stoic Practice of Chosen Hardship - Reframe from "preventing catastrophe" to "coping with discomfort"
Shift the goal of entering feared situations from preventing disaster to practicing tolerance.
Safety Behavior Fading, Made Practical - Practice tonglen for your own suffering first
Use your own current pain as the object before extending the practice to others.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Cultivate Self through directed inner compassion
Practice sending compassion inward — toward the parts that are suffering — to build the Self-energy those parts need.
IFS Self Energy, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Avoidance In Compassion Practice
The impulse not to breathe in suffering is information about where your self-protective contraction lives.
Investigate resistance to the practice honestly
- How Do You Practice Self Acceptance And Self Compassion In Your Daily Life
Kristin Neff defines self-compassion as treating yourself with the same kindness you would offer a struggling friend, built from three parts: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Unlike self-esteem, it does not depend on success or comparison — and it has a genuinely strong research base, with controlled trials linking it to lower anxiety, depression, and self-criticism.
- Self Compassion Tonglen
Use your own current pain as the object before extending the practice to others.
Practice tonglen for your own suffering first
- When Tonglen Tonglen For Self
Use your own current pain as the object before extending the practice to others.
- Acknowledge Pain
Acknowledge suffering as it actually is — without dramatising it or spiritual-bypassing it.
First noble truth — recognising dukkha honestly
- Boundaries From Self Compassion
As the fixed self-boundary loosens, the felt separation between self and others becomes less absolute.
Anatta as the basis for interconnection
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