The Comfort Zone Perspective

At the moment, I am thinking about comfort zones. Specifically, I am thinking about MY comfort zone. Lately I have been antsy. I feel like I am on the verge of a change, and in some ways, I feel like I am holding myself back.

It is a paradoxical thing that happens. We know we want more in life, or want things to be different, and yet oftentimes we are desperate to hold on to the things that make us comfortable - even if they are to are detriment. If it's comfortable, it's familiar, and we THINK it's somehow safer to stay where we are. The only problem is that if we are meant to do something else, or be someone else, and we hold ourselves back we usually get a jolt, a kick in the butt, and have no choice but to make changes.

I share this with you in part because one, I want to see what I can get out of my sharing it, and two, because when things like this happen, how one feels about it has to do with their perspective at the time it is happening. There is a part of me that is focused on the feeling of fear that I have. There is another part that is excited about the possibilities. It's the part that has brought me to where I am now.

I once was interested in a guy who was fearful of getting involved with me, and yet, for a time, we were still moving forward. I asked him at one point how he did that, and his response was that he didn't think about the things that would have stopped him.

I can face these things that are calling me to act, and move forward, or in my comfort zone I can start to feel uncomfortable. It kinda sucks, really. A friend of mine said that she has noticed that things are always changing. Sometimes she says, "Can't I just stay here a little bit longer?" I laughed when she said it, and could totally identify with it.

When I was learning to ride a bike with only two wheels, it seemed that I could ride the bike in the driveway, but not beyond it. The driveway was in between two relatively close houses. My guess is that the "walls" that the houses represented gave me some feeling of safety.

Had I never been willing to venture outside the driveway, I would have missed out on going places that could only be gotten to outside of the range of that pavement. I needed to get out of my comfort (safety) zone. I needed to expand my available options.

I needed to focus on what was "out there" that could be exciting and accessible if I would just get beyond the driveway, instead of focusing on the limited space that I was then operating in. In the end, as scary as it was, I did it, and now I can ride a bike any where, and more importantly, I survived :-).

Had I chosen to stay where I was, my options most certainly would have continued to be limited. As long as I focused on the driveway, I couldn't see what I was missing. I didn't even realize that I was "stuck," as I was riding my bike, after all.

So now what do I do with this? I realize that as long as I am unable to get past my current thoughts, I am stuck. I am living life. I am doing things, after all. But, what am I missing by sabotaging myself, and not allowing myself to move forward? And what are others missing as a result of my not acting upon the things that are calling for me to do them?

My comfort zone is quite uncomfortable, as I find myself back in the driveway today, and looking to find my way out. I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, maybe you want to think about what your "driveway" is, and how you might be able to venture out, and find what you've been missing.

Thanks, as always, for listening...
and have a great day!