Or Unstuck in the Discomfort Zone.
Life is uninteresting, dissatisfying, and mediocre when we engage in the usual life distractions.
The comfort zone is boring, predictable, dissatisfying, constrained, closed, mediocre. It feels easy because we don’t face ourselves. We don’t support ourselves to grow, change, try. We don’t face our fears. Yet our fears hover over us like a shadow. By default, we opt to do the same things over and over.
Life feels mundanely comfortable, as we rush around, judge everyone and everything, resist what’s happening, worry, and stare at a screen to receive our programming. Avoiding or denying our dreams with uninspiring negative self-talk is discouraging. So, we seek the “excitement” of fixating on media and many addictive, unproductive distractions outside ourselves.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)
The cure is simple, even if it’s not easy: self-observation.
The character George Costanza on the Seinfeld show discovered the power of self- study. He comically evaluated how badly he was doing in life and decided to do everything the opposite of usual. With this technique, he met with great luck and success. While few would recommend George Costanza as a role model, he had to observe his choices and habits to change the trajectory of his life.
There is much to observe, learn, see, and remember, when we venture into the discomfort zone of self-study. We examine what, how, why, and when we are doing life. We face the faulty, fearful, negative, and limiting ideas we hold about ourselves and the world. Then the ideas dissipate because they can’t hold up under rational examination. The light of the sun sanitizes.
The discomfort zone has much to recommend it. We practice courage by practicing fear, taking risks and intentionally trying the very things we avoid. If we are afraid to sit in silence, we can try it for a few moments and explore that new terrain. If we are inspired to create, we can practice creativity with absolutely no expectation except to try—just stick a toe into the water and see how it feels. Our baby steps, with all the necessary falling involved, prepare us to run.
By playing in the discomfort zone, we learn to activate what is needed to support our inspiration (courage, patience). We learn to release what is needed to expand, relax, flow, and open to our authentic selves (fear, self-negativity). We develop the tools that make life more simple, easy, and satisfying.
“Human sickness is so severe that few can bear to look at it…but those who do will become well.” Vernon Howard.
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