In my last post I began discussing the various challenges of that last stop on the Chronic Anxiety Cycle Tour, the Comfort Zone. I talked about how the Comfort Zone is restrictive – i.e., that it tends to want to push us back away from whatever scares us, building a wall in our thinking to keep us away from that scary subject.

But Constrictive Is Just The Start

One of the challenges of the Comfort Zone’s tendency to shrink away from danger is that it then starts to limit our range of motion in our lives and thinking. It isn’t just constrictive – it is restrictive as well.

My Mom is a good example of this quality of the Comfort Zone. My Mom was, once upon a time, a big fan of driving. She owned (when I was in Junior High School) a Triumph MG drop-top. She loved that car! I remember her taking us to her school (she taught Junior High, oddly enough), a wildly colorful scarf around her hair, the wind roaring over us as we sat in the tiny back seat, and her telling jokes and laughing as we thundered through Las Vegas.

Somewhere along the way she began to find driving uncomfortable. She was never crazy about freeway driving, ever, and even in the Triumph preferred surface streets. As the years passed she became more and more nervous about driving. She gave up the Triumph for a “safer” car, a Ford, and then began asking her children to run the errands she used to do – go to the grocery store, pick up dinner, etc.

And all this while still in her 50′s! By the time she retired at 64 she had completely given up driving, depending on my Dad or one of us kids to take her where she wanted to go. She always warned us to be careful when we left the house, and was clearly uncomfortable with the whole subject of driving.

The truth is it was horrible to watch her slowly, sadly losing her freedom of motion with respect to driving. Worse still, when pressed on it, she just changed the subject and got mad if you continued talking about it.

Let’s Just Not Go There

Maybe the worst part about this aspect of the Comfort Zone is that we’re mostly unaware that we’re losing our freedom of motion. We begin to adapt to our shrinking world – because that beats all to hell (in our thinking) having to consider the alternative – facing our anxiety.

We also get really good at arguing for our limitations/restrictions. No, we really don’t like going to parties (because we’re afraid of meeting new people, or saying something stupid, or whatever we’re afraid of in groups of people.) No, we really don’t need to travel (because we’re afraid of something bad happening when we’re away from home, or whatever we’re afraid of when considering travel.)

No, even though we HATE our current job and would probably give an arm or a leg for a different one (let alone actually chase down the kind of work or life that REALLY interests us), we’re OK with this current job we can’t stand. We say that because it feels safer (notice the use of the word “feels”) to stay in this yucky job, rather than take the risk of facing our fears and trying for something better.

We are NOT Losers!

Another risk of this Comfort Zone business is how quick we are to trash ourselves, beat ourselves up for our refusal to take our fears on. We’re losers, we’re failures, we’re weak, blah blah blah. None of that is true! We are AFRAID. The strongest person in the world wrestles with fear.

No, the problem isn’t that we’re losers. The problem is that we’re reacting to our fears, to the restrictions placed on us by our reacting to our Flight or Fight Response, by stepping away and allowing our worlds to shrink.

OK – Good To Know – What Then Shall We Do?

The biggest thing to think about with this restrictive quality of the Comfort Zone is to stop arguing for our limitations. Even the personal challenge to NOT just meekly accept our restrictions can go a long ways towards helping energize us to take action about our fears.

It FEELS easier, and definitely safer, if we just quietly let the Comfort Zone hred us into a quiet corner of our lives. It ISN’T better, and it definitely doesn’t do anything to help us overcome our fears.

Where is your life shut down right now? What would you like to be able to do or experience? Warning – even asking this question will potentially piss off your Comfort Zone. That’s GOOD – just expect some twinges from your habitual Flight or Fight Responses. For me that usually meant some uckiness in my stomach, the threat of some dizziness (talk about scary, for me) and almost always some sadness and anger.

ALL GOOD. Our Comfort Zones get entirely too much control of our lives. Maybe it is time to start thinking about taking the wheel away from that Comfort Zone?

Next up – more on the Comfort Zone and the qualities that make it hard to unplug those fears.

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