Getting Comfortable with Ritual Discomfort

I’ve been thinking about how we can learn to be comfortable with discomfort — not just tolerate it, but treat it like a skill to practise.Ahead of a jungle expedition in Peru, I’ve been hiking in too many layers on purpose — sweating, itching, getting used to that mild physical unease. It’s part of the wider question we’re exploring: how do people make decisions under risk and uncertainty in real, messy environments?In expedition planning, risk can be managed. You make checklists, pack the right kit, plan for snakes and flights and calf cramps. But uncertainty is different — open‑ended, unplannable, where you rely on habits rather than instructions.One small example: I’ve been practising how to slow my heart rate by dunking my face in water — a trick from endurance runners that triggers the body’s diving reflex. It’s oddly grounding, and it reminds me that preparation for the unknown doesn’t always look heroic.

Theskill, I think, lies in knowing which kind of world you’re in -the small one you can plan for, or the open one you can only adapt to.

Mostexpeditions, like most lives, turn out to be 99% risk and just 1% true uncertainty. But that 1% is where we learn the most.

Because the ambiguity of mis recognition of which situation you are in is also a practice can be learned faster through practices that allow for ritual discomfort to become comfortable. More what this concept means will keep coming as we near publication and join more expeditions.