Resilience Isn't Comfort: Why We Need to Stop Pulling the Parachute Too Early

'Should I feel this Uncomfortable?'

Across the UK, stress-related absence is rising. People are exhausted, depleted, and over-extended. Psychological health distress is increasing and physical health isn't improving. Organisations are struggling with retention and wellbeing. And beneath it all sits a subtle but powerful belief that quietly shapes behaviour:

“I shouldn’t have to feel this uncomfortable.”

This is rarely said out loud. It shows up instead in the micro-moments:

• The slight tightening in the chest before a work task

• The avoidance of a difficult conversation

• The decision to withdraw instead of engage

• The sudden tiredness when something matters

• Feeling you don't fit or something is wrong with you

It’s the nervous system doing what it’s designed to do: protect.

But increasingly, the protection system is over-firing and we feel constantly overwhelmed. We have started interpreting challenge as danger, which has plunged us into the suffocating quicksand of avoidance.

The Trip Wire Reflex

Many of us now have a trip-wire set too close to our feet. The moment discomfort appears- her I am talking not trauma, not threat, just normal discomfort- the internal alarm goes off. The body says:

“Pull the parachute.”

The parachute can look like:

• Avoiding

• Cancelling

• Shutting down

• Numbing

• Shrinking yourself to feel safer

• Generally stopping short and going with your automatic thought

The parachute keeps us safe when there is real danger, but when it deploys too early, it stops us ever discovering what we are capable of and we get used to that short lived relief- wanting more and more and more. Another drink, wine-gum, quick fix anyone?

Post-Covid & Convenience Sensitivity

After prolonged uncertainty, isolation, disconnection and chronic stress, many nervous systems have become primed to react early. What used to feel tolerable now feels overwhelming. I don't know about you, but it feels the baseline tolerances have shifted and our tolerance for friction has reduced. Our nervous systems at times expect immediate ease, low effort and predictability.

This doesn’t mean we are weak. It means the environment changed faster than we adapted.

Resilience Lives in the Goldilocks Zone

Resilience isn’t built in comfort. And it isn’t built in overwhelm either.

It grows in the middle zone- the “just-stretching-enough” zone:

• Hard, but not harmful

• Uncomfortable, but survivable

• Challenging, but meaningful

Too little stress → stagnation.

Too much stress → collapse.

Just enough stress → growth.

Rebuilding Resilience is a Bandwidth Process

1. Normalize Discomfort

Feeling wobbly or uncomftable does not mean something has gone wrong.

It means your system is encountering something new.

2. Increase Bandwidth Slowly

Not through dramatic leaps, but daily micro-reps of tolerance.

Five minutes more. It literally changes your brain.

One conversation instead of none.

Showing up, even imperfectly.

3. Stay With Emotion Instead of Escaping It

Resilience is not about numbing.

It’s about remaining in contact with the emotion without needing to run from it.

4. Anchor Everything in Meaning

People don’t endure hardship out of discipline alone. They endure it because something matters.

Purpose increases tolerance.

For Individuals

Think of resilience like strength training:

You do not build strength by lifting nothing.

You do not build strength by lifting what breaks you.

You build strength by lifting what is just heavy enough.

A nervous system is no different.

Every time you stay with a challenging emotion- even for 10 seconds longer than last time- you expand your capacity.

Every time you choose presence over escape, you re-train the trip-wire.

Every time you pause before grabbing the parachute, you learn that discomfort is livable.

For Employers

Supporting resilience is not about removing all stress or cushioning the workplace.

It is about shaping environments that allow safe stretch:

• Clarity over chaos

• Psychological safety over emotional avoidance

• Repair conversations instead of silent tension. Be human, start talking to your staff.

• Gradual return-to-work pathways, not all-or-nothing re-entry

• Recognising that burnout recovery requires re-stabilisation, not pressure to perform at pre-burnout levels

Performance and wellbeing are not opposites.

They are partners.

Resilience Isn’t About Being Unaffected

It’s about increasing your bandwidth so you can experience more of life without shutting down.

It’s about learning to stand in the wobble- and recognise that the wobble is where growth happens.

Not to prove strength.

Not to impress anyone.

But because on the other side of discomfort is:

• Competence

• Confidence

• Connection

• Agency

• Identity

• And the quiet sense that you can handle your life

That is resilience.

And it is something that can be rebuilt.