Your comfort zone isn't what you think it is
Subscribe to the Sunday Soother here.
View this email in your browser
Welcome! This is the Sunday Soother, a weekly newsletter about compassionate personal growth and authentic living, written by me, Catherine Andrews, a life coach, teacher, and writer. Did somebody forward this to you? You can subscribe to the Sunday Soother here.
Growth doesn't always happen in the space you might think
Happy Sunday, Soothers. A short but hopefully sweet and potent one for you this week. Many times in personal growth, we're challenged to go outside of our comfort zone in order to grow.
I think there is something to this. Most times when I've pushed past fear to do things like start my business, tell somebody my feelings, public speak, show up visibly in the world, solo vacation or whatever... there was beautiful growth on the other side of that fear and discomfort.
But as I grow deeper and take my journey in different directions, I realize there is a huge area of going outside of my comfort zone that I've avoided very strongly.
And that's the zone of joy, safety, pleasure, slowness, abundance and presence.
I think when we think about going outside of our comfort zone, we assume there's a visible push, struggle, striving, difficulties, moving past fear that would be natural.
But what about spending time in safety? Allowing in pleasure and joy? Receiving love and abundance? Slowing down and stopping hustling? Not working 40 hours a week? Receiving adoration? Practicing feeling safe?
And I never even thought of that kind of stuff as going outside of my comfort zone because of COURSE shouldn't we be comfortable when we're going slow, when we give ourselves lots of time, when we receive love or feel abundant or have hope, when we rest?
Hell no. That kind of shit.... yikes. That's the stuff that's REALLY outside of my comfort zone. The truth is I feel safe when hustling, when doing, when working, when racing around, when saving up, when controlling, when knowing all the things, when being productive. But slowing down... being present... receiving... all my alarm bells go off. My hypervigilance flares up. My nervous system doesn't recognize those as safe. In fact, there's an impression of danger with them, for sure.
But I want that to change. For me, and for you.
This week, I challenge you when, you think about growing and going outside of your comfort zone, instead of growth that looked like working hard, pushing, or showing up when you're scared, how about engaging in things like...
Taking a full day off of work
Spending money on something that would give you a lot of joy or pleasure, but that feels indulgent
Doing nothing but reading a fiction book all day
Doing nothing "productive" or self-improvement oriented for 24 hours, or hell, the whole week (or our whole lives???)
Slowing down when you notice yourself speeding up
Receiving help and compliments and simply saying, "Thank you"
Asking for help
Tearing up your to-do list
Resting
Spending a whole week making choices based only on if they would give you pleasure or joy
For me, stepping out of hypervigilance, fear, scarcity, hard work, urgency, into presence, joy, slowness, receiving, has been truly outside of my comfort zone in deeply uncomfortable ways. And yet, I think it continues to be some of the most important work of my life.
So take this note as a challenge to you, not to push yourself as growth, but to slow down and rest and receive as growth.
Allow yourself to breathe and melt into that kind of zone. And see what magic may happen for you.