I'm Encountering Disruptions & Making People Uncomfortable
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable
My Journey
Welcome to another Addy Minute Newsletter, and a special welcome to my new subscribers. As one reader recently pointed out, my writings seem to be filled with self-reflection. It’s my ongoing hope that these writings encourage, inspire, resonate with and even challenge you all.
I’ll admit that lately my life has been filled with more uncomfortable situations than I’d prefer. Even though I’m smiling in this 2023 photo on the Kakum Canopy Walkway in Ghana, I can assure you that I felt uncomfortable walking across the narrow wooden plank, 130 feet in the air!
On a societal level, there are plenty of anxiety-provoking, tumultuous, and tragic events leaving many of us feeling unsettled. For anyone with connections to world-wide conflicts, this can be personally challenging and devastating.
Here in the US, our contentious election season is already sparking many uncomfortable interactions in our homes, communities, churches, and in the halls of government. In 2020, I contributed to a Smithsonian Magazine article on the anxiety of election season. Perhaps not surprisingly, the principles from that article are still relevant in 2024.
Discomfort in our lives can arise for any number of reasons. In these newsletters, I’ve frequently written about my experiences as a scientist, mental health advocate, man of faith, son of immigrants, and a Black man living in the US.
From childhood through present day, my uncomfortable experiences have been numerous. In middle school, I remember being called an “oreo” by a group of predominantly white kids. They used this term as an insult, claiming that I was “black on the outside and white on the inside.” As a young adult, I’d frequently hear that click of car doors locking, as I walked through the neighborhood. It was as if people suddenly felt the need to protect themselves in my presence. As a Yale Professor, I remember making a late-night drive home from the airport, after traveling to speak at another university. It was 1 am, and even the main roads were isolated and desolate. I was only 10 minutes from home, when I saw the flashing police lights behind me. I hadn’t violated any traffic laws, and I had no idea why I was being pulled over. As the police approached my car, my heart felt like it was pounding out of my chest - especially with so many interactions between police and Black people ending in tragedy. My feelings of discomfort didn’t subside, as the police explained the seemingly made-up reason I’d been pulled over, before checking my license and registration.
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Like most of us, I’d prefer to avoid these uncomfortable situations. At the same time, some of my uncomfortable situations have been to my benefit. This has certainly been my experience, even in privileged academic spaces. That’s not to say that there aren’t problematic scenarios occurring on our campuses. One only has to think back a few months to the meaningful and challenging protests and disputes on our college and university campuses. Many of us also have first-hand experience navigating challenging and uncomfortable situations on campus. Thankfully, I’ve also encountered situations that brought about growth.
As a college student, I was part of a leadership team for a scholarship program. In my senior year, the program president and I met with our University President. In addition to providing program updates, we were tasked with requesting additional funds. We’d rehearsed our presentation beforehand. But once the meeting started, my voice trembled every time I spoke! The President and her staff were engaging, gracious, and encouraging. Their positive responses didn’t remove my anxious feelings. But thankfully, our proposal was well received, and our request was supported. At the time, I didn’t realize how this meeting would impact my future interactions with leadership. Incidentally, my co-leader, who years later served in the White House, also cited that experience as instructive in her own development as a leader.
When I started my faculty position at Yale, I remember bumping into a campus leader on a sunny fall afternoon. He graciously stopped to ask about my experience thus far. I was still new in my role, and I felt uncertain about my place on campus. At that time, I often felt uncomfortable interacting with leaders. I’d typically speak very quickly, without giving the other person much time to interject in our conversation. It’s as if I was trying to speed up the uncomfortable interaction, so I could remove myself from the conversation.
My behavior in these academic scenarios were partially a reflection of my own insecurities. Looking back, I can also see how this discomfort helped me to grow. As I continued in my leadership journey, this discomfort emerged in new ways. That was definitely the case when I co-hosted our 2019 “God, Mental Health and Wellness in NYC.” I felt deeply encouraged by the many panelists who accepted my invitation to contribute. I also felt grateful for the more than 1300 people who registered for the gathering. Those feelings quickly shifted to a mixture of nervousness, excitement, disbelief and awe, on the night of our event. It felt intimidating to walk onto the stage, with the houselights dimmed and a bright spotlight tracking my every movement as a I spoke! The discomfort was well worth it. I was honored to host such a powerful evening, with attendees sharing how they’d waited for years to engage in that type of event!
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I opened this newsletter claiming that I’ve recently been in uncomfortable situations more often than I’d like. But I didn’t disclose that I’m usually the one initiating the discomfort. Sometimes, the discomfort arises around a challenging or sensitive topic. This is especially true when I’m discussing mental illness, mistreatment, or racism - topics that are inherently uncomfortable. Other times, I’m intentionally trying to push people out of their comfort zone, so we can get to a better place of understanding and thriving.
More recently, this has extended beyond my speaking engagements. I’m also initiating uncomfortable interactions in my one-on-one conversations. This is definitely a shift, as I’m typically one to avoid conflict and uncomfortable conversation. As I’ve stepped into new roles, I’ve also had to confront the downside of leaving conflicts unaddressed. Instead, I’ve starting to address errors, ill-intentioned actions, and misperceptions head on. Sometimes it means anticipating errors before they arise, and taking others through the discomfort of realizing that the lack of anticipation could increase the likelihood of a problematic outcome. There are times I need to let the discomfort sit for a while, whether I’m addressing my own mistake or someone else’s.
In the season of life, I’m choosing to lean into this discomfort. I’m learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. In doing so, I’m giving myself opportunities to grow, and hopefully I’m helping others to grow as people, in their work, and in their relationships and calling.
Wellness Tip
This month’s wellness tip is quite simple. Check your internal motivations – especially in conversations related to the upcoming US election. As a question of reflection, how do you engage in conversations with those whose political views differ from your own? Maybe you’re one to try and avoid those conversations all together? But if you’re one to engage, do you enter those conversations with a goal of shutting others down, putting them in their place, and showing them why they’re wrong? Or do you seek to listen, and even understand others’ perspectives?
You may be wondering what this has to do with wellness. It’s worth acknowledging that our stress and uncertainty around the elections can impact us. It would be naïve to think that watching political discussions, charge disagreements, and vitriolic conversations wouldn’t affect our own mood and interactions with others. I encourage you to be honest with yourself and reflect on how the election, or conversations about the election, are impacting your mood, your emotions, and your interactions with others.
A Look Ahead
For this look ahead, I’m actually reflecting back. This past May, I had the honor of facilitating a panel discussion between psychiatrist, researcher and professor, Dr. John Krystal, and visual artist and professor, Dr. Imo Imeh. The panel discussion was based on our collaborative art and science endeavor. The goal of the project was to address “the underrepresentation of Black people on the Journal Cover through a series of commissioned artworks” as described on the Biological Psychiatry journal website. The project itself had far reaching implications, impacting how we approach, practice, research and discuss neuroscience and psychiatry.
The project also had many layers of risk and discomfort. There was the risk of embarking on a new project across two distinct fields – psychiatry and art, with an emphasis on the imagery of Black people and topics of mental health. There was the challenge of trying to address meaningful and yet uncomfortable topics. There was the historical and ongoing tension between psychiatry and Black communities, a history filled with mistreatment, racism and mistrust.
There were also opportunities for healing. There was bridge building, empathy and understanding that was fostered amongst the three of us as individuals, and across the field. There were those who saw themselves represented in ways they hadn’t seen themselves represented in the past. There were those who saw topics afresh, with a new or renewed perspectives. Once again, beauty emerged as we leaned into our discomfort.