Your Comfort Zone…

This was posted on a forum I frequent by one of it’s members, by the name of Paul. The subject matter is very important, and it was so well written, I had to share it with you.

What Is the Comfort Zone?
Let’s explore this idea of a comfort zone to see if it is actually supporting you. What is it exactly?

• It is not a real place. It is an idea created by you.
• Its function is to keep you feeling safe.
• It is what you know and are familiar with in all areas of your life—relationships, choices, how you spend your time—even thoughts patterns and feelings.
• It excludes things you are afraid of or uncomfortable with.

If you have a comfort zone, you must also have a discomfort zone. And what’s out there in the discomfort zone? All those experiences you are afraid of. Consider these:

• Emotions you have been avoiding;
• Changes that seem risky;
• Potential and possibility that you aren’t allowing yourself to see;
• The unknown, outside of what you believe to be true;
• Ease with whatever life brings you;
• The freshness of life unfolding as it is.

Living in your comfort zone divides the whole of reality into areas that are acceptable and unacceptable. It is a mind-created, fear-based division that requires you to manage your life experience so you don’t stray into unfamiliar territory.

The comfort zone may be safe, but what does it deny? Enthusiasm, wonder, curiosity, and infinite possibility beyond the mind’s limits. Is it really that comfortable?

Out Beyond Comfort

If you want your experience to be different than it is, if you’re not happy, then you are being offered a golden invitation—to go outside your comfort zone and get to know discomfort. You don’t have to wait for an extreme life event. Connect with your heart and see what you really want. I doubt you’re truly comfortable playing it safe.

So what to do? Get comfortable with discomfort.

Realize that staying in the comfort zone takes effort and vigilance. It resists what is. It hides from what is true. It makes you believe you are fraction of who you really are.

Step away from playing it safe, and you enter the world of possibility. You stop basing your life on what is false and instead tell the truth.

-Paul Blackburn