the pacific north witch

The Comfort Zone: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Posted on by Shanna S Mathews-Mendez

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I read this book to my daughter, Nightsong, about the comfort zone. We picked it up in the Muir Woods bookstore. I like to buy books when we go places, and then I write an inscription on the inside, where we were, the date, what the experience meant to me. Often I have no idea what the book is about; I choose based on illustrations and a quick look at the language. Everytime we read this book, Celaya and I are both touched, in unique ways.

Nightsong

 
A mother bat tells her baby bat, Chiro, that it is time for him to go out on his own into the night, all the way to the pond where they feed.
He’s scared. “It’s so dark out there. How will I find my way?” She tells him to listen to his song. She tells him to trust his song, that as long as his song is true, he will find his way, and he will not get lost.
 
She cautions him, “‘but do not go farther than the pond, not unless your song is sure.’ And then, she let him go.”

 
Chiro has never been beyond the pond in his life, so she’s not sure he will be able to recognize anything or find his way. So Chiro flies out into the night, afraid, but going anyway. He makes out something in the distance, and he sends out his call, his echolocation, and he can see clearly that it’s a flock of birds, then a telephone wire. He’s listening to his song.
 
Finally, he makes it to the pond and he feasts like never before. He’s so proud of himself.
 
Then Chiro decides he is going to go ever farther. He flies all the way to the ocean and out over the waves. The sun is just making its way over the horizon as Chiro gets sleepy, misses his mama, and heads back home, listening to his song all the way.
 
When he gets home, his mama asks him how it was out there in the big world without her?
 
And he says, “Why, Mama, it was very, very dark…
 
“And I saw everything!”
 
Then he snuggles up and goes to sleep in his precious comfort zone, his mama’s wings.

The Lesson

 
A few things about this book: first, my daughter insists that Chiro is a girl. I have to change all the him’s and he’s to her’s and she’s. It’s a thing she does, and I like it, so I play along.
Second, the experience between Chiro and his mama always makes me think about bravery and comfort zones. More accurately, it makes me think of the bravery to push past our comfort zones.
 
How easy it is to snuggle into our routines, our daily grind, our contentment, and simply breathe through life. For some reason though, in many of us, there is this nagging voice in our heads, “you can do so much more.”
 
But then you get overwhelmed by that. So much more? I don’t have time for so much more. I don’t have the tools. I don’t have the patience.
 
In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah says, about life in the hood, “Comfort has a floor. But it also has a ceiling.”
He talks about how it is comfortable in the hood because there is community, there is support, and you are loved. The problem comes when you long for life beyond the hood. You cannot strive to be better than the hood and stay living in the hood. You just can’t. And that’s scary. You want better, but you don’t want to leave behind what makes you feel good, loved.
There is something so… comforting… about comfort. It is safe and warm. But there is also a limit in our comfort. We cannot move past it until we take a risk and fly into the night.

Breaking Out of the Comfort Zone

 
I watched an instagram video on The Rock’s newsfeed the other day where he talked about always reaching higher, pushing past limits and boundaries, getting out of the comfort zone. He says his fans ask him, “You say you’re number one, there’s no one better, but you’re still out there competing. Who are you competing with?” 
“Myself.” He answers. “I can always go higher; there is always another limit to push past.” (I’m paraphrasing here.)
 
For me, I think there has to be a balance. I enjoy comfort. I like just sitting down at the end of a day and having a glass of wine. I like sitting on the top of whatever mountain I have climbed and looking down at the path behind me, how far I’ve come. 
I sit, I reflect on what I’ve done, how far I’ve come, and I enjoy an orange.  Or something like that. But then, a little time goes by, and my bliss turns to restlessness. “What’s next?” I ask myself. “Are there other mountains to climb? Bigger than this one? Maybe not bigger, but with different obstacles to overcome, a different view from the top, different fruit to eat at the top?”
I march back down, reveling in the newfound abilities I have acquired. I find a new mountain, a new river, a new bridge, and I make sure the lessons I learned and the muscles I built on the last mountain stay with me. I am never comfortable for long.

Listen to Your Voice

When I was younger this manifested in a destructive way. I had no knowledge, no guidance, and no resources to climb higher than I was, so I created drama in my life that I didn’t need. I got married at 18 because I could. I was an adult now!  I took on service jobs and quit as soon as I became bored, sometimes after only a day.
I’ve cleaned hotel rooms, I’ve dished mashed potatoes at Boston Market, I’ve babysat at 24 hour fitness, I’ve flipped burgers, I’ve waited tables, opened checking accounts, searching for comfort. Then, I find a comfort zone, and I settle in, ignoring the nagging voice in my head, whispering, “this isn’t it. You’re not done.”
Finally the voice becomes loud enough that I get up and move again. Sometimes I have buried the voice so deeply that I have almost drowned in comfort. I stayed in my first marriage five years longer than I should have. (We were married for five years.) I stayed in banking far longer than I should have. And, yes, I probably put off this writing gig for far too long.

Be An Alchemist

I have gotten better at listening to the knocking, hearing my voice whisper to me. When Carlos and I were first dating, I read The Alchemist, by Paolo Coehlo. It was the first full length book I ever read in Spanish, and boy was I proud of myself. “Yes! I read a foreign language book in its original language!” Man, did I spend a lot of time patting myself on the back for that one. Then I found out that Coehlo is Brazilian and that the book is originally written in Portuguese.
Oh well, I was still proud for reading a whole book in Spanish.
In the book, the main character takes this long journey through the desert, following his intuition. He knows he is headed to greatness. He trusts his voice. But on the way, he falls deeply in love with a desert woman. He gets comfortable. He is ready to give up the journey and settle down with her, ignoring his voice.
She won’t let him. “No,” she tells him. “You must go on. Follow your journey. Finish it.” She encourages him, pushing him out of his comfort zone. “I am not going anywhere. And if you don’t go, eventually, you will resent me for keeping you here, for keeping you from your journey.”
And he heard her. He moved on, he finished his journey. He listened to her because he knew she was echoing his own voice. He broke out of his comfort zone.

Be Better

That book changed my life. I realized that I had to keep going. I had to stick with college; I was barely a freshman at the time. I had started school the year I turned 27. It helped me fall in love with Carlos because I knew he would do the same for me; he would, and he has, push me to keep going, keep climbing, be bolder, be bigger. He would make sure I never stayed comfortable (damn him). Ten years later I still remember the words from that book.
“That’s what alchemists do. They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
So I strive to be better than I am, I compete against myself, and in doing so, I hope that I am helping everything around me become better, too.

49 thoughts on “The Comfort Zone: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”

  1. I love the reminder to keep trying to get better and not settling because you are comfortable. I am currently stepping out of my comfort zone professionally and it is dark and scary but I know from past experiences that it is the best way forward. I am going to take a look at “Nightsong” for my daughter. I think she would really like it. She is eager to go into the darkness and it sounds like it would really resonate with her.

    Reply

    1. lovely! Isn’t it interesting how the more we encourage our children to be brave and strong, the braver and stronger we become as well. Our children make us better because we strive to be strong role models for them.

      Reply

  2. Reading, the outdoors and teachable moments in everything, I think your blog covered a lot of important and insightful truths. We are all searching and looking for that “fit.” I will be 51 years old this month, and I am hoping that blogging will be mine. At the rate I’m going it will be a long time before I get too comfortable in it, and yet there is so much room to go. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply

    1. thank you for commenting. And the good thing about a new journey is that no long how it takes to get “comfortable,” you can enjoy the ride from the very beginning! And hey, we’ve got each other!

      Reply

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