Getting Comfortable Outside Your Comfort Zone •

One of the challenges I made for myself on my adventure was to step outside my comfort zone. It seems like I’ve been living in it so long every day was the same, or like I was trying to stay in it, or escape from it.

I started by stepping away from all work to focus on myself. I confronted old fears like riding a horse and new ones like zip lining. I stopped trying to please everyone and to please myself instead. I slept in a tent with roaches on the beach, I did some crazy mud hiking, and I met a nice man.

Here’s the irony I’m encountering. I’m getting comfortable stepping outside my comfort zone. This is a weird paradox because I don’t know if I’m being challenged anymore if it becomes comfortable to be uncomfortable.

It’s a strange feeling when a fear becomes a comfort zone. Like riding boats. I grip the sides of motor boats, especially when they make sharp turns, because I’m afraid we’re going to tip over, and I’m planning what I’m going to do when it happens. I’ve now ridden on so many small boats in big oceans with big waves that I got used to the crazy rocking and tendency of the boat to seem like it will tip over. I stopped gripping the sides and learned to tilt with the boat and let go of worrying. I went to a hot spring with a water slide. Normally I’d wait for many others to go before me so I could check out how it appears and calculate best way to go to avoid fear, pain, etc. This time, I saw the slide and without thinking, placed myself on it and went down.

I took these boats many, many times in all kinds of waters…

Me in the saddle!

However, there is one comfort zone I know I have yet to tackle. One of my goals is to fall in love! 🙂 This is an area I definitely want to push my comfort zone around, but find challenging. I notice and can define various energies I feel with different people, but I’m still learning how to interpret those energies for myself and what they mean related to my feelings.

So, I wonder, is it possible to reach a point where you run out of uncomfortable zones? Or, does pushing the limit of a comfort zone in one area show you where you still have work to do in other areas? If we ultimately want some form of stability in our lives, isn’t that the antithesis of stretching comfort zones? Just curious….