Rethinking the Comfort Zone

I’m in a brave season of my life right now.

By that I don’t mean I’m vibing bravado and banging my fist against my iron breastplate. I mean shaking in my shoes but doing it anyway. (I believe that is called courage.)

Humans are funny creatures. We equally crave novelty and fear the unknown. We get bored easily but don’t like change. We are designed to expand but anxious about letting go.

With our reptilian brain doing the heavy lifting to keep us safe (unknown = danger) it’s no wonder we are naturally drawn to our comfort zone.

The Misnomer of the Comfort Zone

The comfort zone: a soothing, familiar, sweatpant-wearing space of small square footage where bras and hair washing are optional.

It’s so comfortable our passion can casually atrophy, taking our drive with it. It’s so safe everything else feels like danger. The lease never expires, no one ever tells us to pick up our dirty socks and every drawer is stuffed with our favorite take-out menus.

This is the cultural story.  

We hear a lot about the dangers of the comfort zone. All the quotes advise immediate ejection. Growth is uncomfortable. Suck it up.

“Life begins at the end of our comfort zone,” they like to say.

But will we always struggle to cut up our membership card? Does leaving our comfort zone have to feel like having our fingernails ripped off one by one? Will it always require our own brute force or the Universe evicting us?

I believe there is a kinder, more integrated approach.

How to Work With Fear

First off, we must understand that our comfort zone isn’t just natural for us, but essential. It fills our basic needs for safety, security and rest. We will never win a fight against our lizard brains' need for safety. Though its fear is often irrational, its need is very real.

The goal isn’t to catapult ourselves from our unchallenged nesting den into some faraway land of unknown. That’s too big a jump, one that will trigger the fear alarm.

Our primal fear isn’t personal. It’s there to ensure we don’t die. If we remember that, attending to it with compassionate understanding, it loses its power to dictate how much life we are willing to allow in.

Yes, we can get stuck in our comfort zone. But equally we can get stuck in overdoing, striving and perfectionism. We can get locked in the inertia of anything.

But it’s not the comfort zone that is problematic. It’s how we think about it, and ourselves, that causes trouble.  

Most of us are conditioned to mistrust ourselves, our instincts, our desires. We are taught that, left to our own devices, we will make poor choices, that outside mandates are needed to keep us in line.

It’s a lie. It says: You can’t trust yourself so trust me (so I can control you).

But what if the comfort zone is a natural, needed rest stop on a long journey? What if rather than fight it, we embrace it?

Stop Forcing, Start Allowing

That's great, you might say. But then I might never leave my comfort zone.

Have you ever wanted to spend a whole day in bed? It feels so cozy and good, and you can’t imagine ever wanting to get up and, say, go for a walk or to work. But after a day or two of lying there, you get restless and want movement, want stimulation.

Allowing is so much more effective than forcing.

Firstly, because forcing doesn’t work. We might get short-term “results” but never sustainable change.

Shame never works.

Secondly, forcing disconnects us from ourselves and our authenticity. It leaves us isolated and homeless, wandering around in search of someone to tell us our truth.

Still not convinced? Still think you need a heavy hand to push you from your comfort zone?

Beyond the Comfort Zone: Self-Trust

Think of how different you are today than you were ten years ago, twenty years ago. It’s impossible to look across a life, regardless of its length, and not see change/growth/expansion. From learning to walk, to surviving our first heartache, to mastering a skill, we are nothing but expansion.  

We can’t stop ourselves from expanding. Try it and see. I bet you’ll be bored by the end of the afternoon.

Our authentic selves will always propel us forward. Not in a pedal to the floor kind of way, but in a steady, loving way.

We can learn to trust ourselves to act on our own behalf. We can learn to live in partnership with ourselves, rather as the dictator of ourselves.

I used to believe if I didn’t have an exercise schedule I wouldn’t exercise. I simply didn’t trust myself to care for my body (thanks to decades of conditioning about needing to manage my body, my appetite, my size). But when I dropped the external mandates, the “shoulds” around my body, and boosted my self-love and self-trust, guess what happened?

I began to exercise simply because I wanted to.

It was the same with eating. I didn’t trust myself at all around food. Intuitive Eating taught me a new way, one rooted in trusting myself and my body.

When I stopped fighting my comfort zone and instead befriended it, something incredible happened. I naturally outgrew it.

Because, inevitably, the comfort zone is comfortable until it isn’t.

At some point we’re like baby birds who’ve outgrown the nest and must fly. Our inner engines turn over, telling us it’s time to drive. Our sloth-self yawns in protest but the car is already warmed up, the travel snacks ready. It’s time to go.

Embracing Discomfort

If we think about our own expansion across our lives, we can see all the comfort zones we’ve left behind.

Yes, sometimes we may have to give ourselves a little nudge with action. But that is not the same as shaming ourselves into certain behaviors.

Rather than being an outside mandate of what we “should” do, the urge comes from inside us. It is connected to the truth of who we are and what we ultimately want.

It might look like, “Part of me doesn’t want to go to that social thing tonight but I know in my heart I want to create more connection with others.”

We can investigate a “no” by asking which part of us is active? Is it our authentic self or our unconscious fear?

Another question to ask: What do I want for myself in the long-term and how can I honor that in this moment?

It doesn't mean we won't experience discomfort or risk. But because the motivation is an internal one, informed by our authenticity, we are acting in alignment with ourselves.

With this gentle approach, we begin to dip our toe out of our comfort zone. The walls become more porous and translucent. Rather than our primary dwelling, it becomes a second home, and we are a visitor rather than a hostage.

Getting scared doesn't mean we're doing it wrong. It means we are doing it right.

And then, eventually, we outgrow it all together. Not once, but over and over. We step outside the box of our comfort because we are ready.

Each expansion settles us on a new plateau where we rest and catch our breath. Most likely we form a new comfort zone, another one we will someday outgrow, and that is just as it should be.

The New Zone of Comfort

Imagine a life where we don’t need rigid guard rails to keep us safe, where we can trust ourselves, our energy, our longings to speak to us in the only language that ever matters – the language of our authenticity.

Our comfort zone becomes less of a “place,” defined by actions or inactions, but a space inside us, a space of safety and security that can hold us no matter what is happening outside us.

When we stop judging and forcing ourselves, our authenticity naturally rises to the surface. We can trust it. We can trust ourselves.