Comfort Zone

Dear Goddesses,

Monday evening, I went to a Soul Yoga class with my dear friend Dana. Although the class was mainly in Spanish – and unfortunately my Spanish skills are, well, not where they need to be – it was clear what the intention of the class was and so although I understood little of the words, I was clear with the intention. I decided to take a look at my relationship to abundance and my ability (or inability) to attract at this moment. And while we were doing the yoga movements, I noticed how incredibly stiff my body was, as if I was stretching from being in one position for too long. I looked at my body’s reaction to the movements and what it was that I wanted to transform, and I saw just how rigid my life has become – and so has my body. I saw how I was living in the box – of my own design. Another thing I recognized as we went into a pose resembling a frog, I was really struggling and I looked around and it seemed that with that particular pose everyone seemed at ease. I looked at their feet and I felt like I was doing the exact same thing, but then I happened to look down at my feet and while my right foot was solid on the ground, my left foot was totally crooked and my stance was completely narrow, where everyone else had this wide balanced stance. I couldn't help but see how this also connected to abundance - that I am not allowing myself the foundation, the ease in which to open and attract - again, I put myself into this very tight pose, expecting the same ease that everyone else was experiencing.

I thought it fit perfectly with the theme of justice – and how sometimes we set our lives in such a rigid way that we end up rebelling, or finding that according to our rigidness, we can’t “win” or experience success because we’re living by these harsh rules.

I was reading a little of Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles yesterday and chapter 10 is about releasing the brake. He used the analogy of driving with your parking brake on and when you realize that it is on, you don’t put your foot harder on the gas to go faster, you simply release the brake. And most of us are driving with a psychological emergency brake on and wondering how come we’re not getting to our destination fast enough. He related – my rigid box analogy as our safety zone.

I want to share with you a little blurb…

“Think of your comfort zone as a prison you live in – a largely self-created prison. It consists of the collection of can’ts, musts, must nots, and other unfounded beliefs formed from all the negative thoughts and decisions you hgave accumulated and reinforced during your lifetime…

A baby elephant is trained at birth to be confined to a very small space. Its trainer will tie its leg with a rope to a wooden post planted deep in the ground. This confines the baby elephant to an area determined by the length of the rope – the elephant’s comfort zone. Though the baby elephant will initially try to break the rope, the rope is too strong, and so the baby elephant learns that it can’t break the rope. It learns that it has to stay in the area defined by the length of the rope.

When the elephant grows up into a 5 ton colossus that could easily break the same rope, it doesn’t even try because it learned as a baby that it couldn’t break the rope. In this way, the largest elephant can be confined by the puniest little rope.

Perhaps this also describes you – still trapped in a comfort zone by something as puny and weak as the small rope and stake that controls the elephant, except your rope is made up of the limiting beliefs and images that you received and took on when you were young. If this describes you, the good news is that you can change your comfort zone. How? There are three different ways:

1. You can use affirmations and positive self-talk to affirm already having what you want, doing what you want, and being the way that you want.
2. You can create powerful and compelling new internal images of having, doing, and being what you want.
3. You can simply change your behavior.

All three of these approaches will shift you out of your old comfort zone.”

The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

Albert Einstein

I’ll leave you with this blurb today – there’s another related one that I will share tomorrow.

Patty’s Challenge: What is your comfort zone and how is it imprisoning you? What is one thing that you can do TODAY to begin to expand your comfort zone? (you’ll know you are heading to the edges of your comfort zone when you begin to feel uncomfortable!) Your comfort zone dictates where you eat, where you shop, where you live, where you travel…If you see a store or restaurant that you would normally never shop at, never eat at because you think it would be too expensive, too trendy – take a step inside. Have a cup of coffee and a pastry at the restaurant perhaps, or buy something small at a gourmet food store. Start breaking the rigid box we have placed ourselves in…

Love to you,
Patty