Are You In A Comfort Trap?

- Fleur Britten

Would you choose to spend your hard-earned spare time sitting in a circle with a group of strangers gathered to tell you exactly what they think of you? It might be as innocuous as, “Actually, you’ve got a bit of a resting bitch face” or take the form of a round of “I don’t like you” and “I don’t like you, either”. This is ‘circling’, in which people share their honest perceptions of each other – and the franker, the better.

Why on earth would you endure that, you may well ask. After all, isn’t this the age of self-care, and if you’d rather spend the evening with Netfl ix, a nice red and Uber Eats, you should, right? Wrong, according to trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory, which, in a recent briefing highlighted the concept of ‘positive discomfort’. The agency’s deputy foresight editor Kathryn Bishop describes it as the “reframing of that uncomfortable feeling as something that’s good for us”, adding that recent studies have shown discomfort can be a stimulus for growth. “It’s the idea of healthy stress,” she says.

Indeed, back in circling hell, there are apparently plenty of benefits in experiencing “the discomfort that comes with feeling unmasked”, says Sara Ness, the Texas-based founder of Authentic Revolution, which runs circling sessions around the world for, among others, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, lawyers and artists. Circling, she claims, enhances self-awareness, creates connection and expands people’s capacity to tolerate more. What doesn’t kill you, people.