The comfort zone and how to get out of it...
The so-called comfort zone is a mental state which is obtained by making the surrounding environment favorable to us in the short and medium term by making the mutable static, and turning the surrounding environment into a further extension of our body. While this can generate pleasure and ease in the short term, it eventually ends up stagnant and preventing progress, development and personal evolution.
To leave the comfort zone, it is not necessary, contrary to what many believe, to leave somewhere or start doing things differently. The only thing that is really needed is to change our mentality and our way of thinking so that the manifestations of us change, so, if we want to leave that zone, the necessary thing will be to create a mental state of comfort with ourselves, so that we don't need a zone to feel comfortable and pleasant and on the contrary we can feel comfortable in any situation.
Feeling comfortable with yourself is the way in which the comfort zone disappears, since it is no longer necessary, practical, or useful, thus being any zone in which you find yourself, a comfort zone.
But how do I make this change? That is what has not been said, and is that, like any change and personal progress or self-improvement, what is necessary is not a change in physical attitudes but mental, thinking and perceiving forms differently, so the only thing that is really useful to get out of the comfort zone is to open your mind to the pile of possibilities and opportunities that life presents to you daily.
With this simple change of disposition you will be ready to leave your comfort zone and convert each place, each zone where you are, in your new zone, without the need to make the movable become static but skillfully adapting to the change by being aware of that the only thing that remains static in life is you, and to the extent that you decide.
That is then the way out and disappear the so-called comfort zone, to make ourselves comfortable by feeling confident with whom we are.
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That's a fine writing up on how to perceive "comfort zone" differently. In order to have a further dialogue I like to bring some more thoughts to it.
Although I can very well understand this claim, which you always put on yourself first in order to avoid putting it on others, one could all too easily overlook your words that "we regard our environment as an extension of our bodies". Therefore, as a supplement, I want to be a little exemplary, although it is clear to me that such examples encourage contradiction because they contain a component of sacrifice.
Well-being, which can be understood superficially as taking a break from a strenuous week at work, resting with all the comforts of home, going on holiday, eating and drinking well, going on a wellness or retreat weekend, taking a trip by car, etc.
The opposite of well-being in a situation where we expect things to run smoothly, for example, would be if we were to fly to a beautiful holiday island, have two weeks of free time ahead of us and then complain at the reception desk that the bathroom has not been cleaned to our satisfaction. Generally, such a thing is not necessarily considered as a cardinal offence, one is quickly on the hand to want to secure one's own comfort through others and thinks that one is also right with that. But to what extent this situation is actually consciously perceived as a malaise is once again a question.
To the extent that comfort zone means in this context replacing my feet with an airplane or a car trip, replacing my eyes with the camera footage of others, agreeing to the wording of the law without having gone through a process of finding fairness myself, and then arriving at that very wording of the law all by myself, I fail to see that creating comfort for myself can mean the voluntary renunciation of amenities.
That is how I interpret your words, that remaining in my comfort zone generally brings pleasure and ease, but in the long run it ends in stagnation and makes personal maturation difficult or even prevents it.
I would like to add that every situation one enters in daily life can be used as a chance to practice. Like the following:
I hope, those examples can give the direction in a practical way how important it is, to stay comfortable with oneself. :)
Yes, the point is to realize that the comfort zone is a mental state, and not really an zone, as the name seems to indicate. In a way it is like personal space, wherever you are, it will accompany you. Only, of course, that the opposite usually happens, and we drag an discomfort zone wherever we go as long as we are not comfortable with ourselves.
All the examples you mention make me think that discomfort arises precisely when we don't know what to do. The answer for me is easy, if you don't know what to do, settle for doing nothing, and see everything else that you can do as an advantage.
I think it is very difficult, for the common people, to simply stand still and do nothing. From there can easily arise discomfort.
HaHa! It's actually funny to imagine someone dragging literally his space of discomfort with him! :D
best advice :)
Oh, I forgot the most significant addition to your text. That of mental "effort".
(Modern) minds are used to expect to understand a text smoothly, balanced, without irritations and disturbances. One wants to understand "quickly", "effort-less", one doesn't like further expressions which basically repeat the already expressed and feels that the intelligence of the reader is offended by continuously repetitions of "the same".
But I'd say it's effort in the first place which leads to a deeper understanding of a text, of which otherwise a reader may slightly just brush or stroll along, hands in his pockets. Having a feeling "Oh, that's so nice. I got it." Turning around the corner and forgetting about it completely.
Also, paradox or absurd formulations and seemingly unsolvable riddles lead the mind - which only wants to experience comfort - to stumble. This stumbling creates irritation. If one interprets this irritation not as "I feel impatient!" but as "I feel irritated. Irritation gets me thinking more deeply, therefor it's good to be irritated", this difference already grants me another approach to the topic of comfort zone."
One finds these absurd formulations and riddles often in Zen-anecdotes.
Agree with you. Although I believe that the repetition of a thought through different words can lead the reader to a deep understanding of the subject by changing perception, and not by tautology.
In my view, tautology, although it repeats the same thing, but includes synonymous terms, can facilitate or even encourage the change of perspective you are talking about. Since I personally could, for example, understand the first sentence differently, less deeply, than the second or third sentence, which uses other terms, the tautology helps me to use perspective and repetition alike for understanding.
I know that an equation for bodily experience is not entirely permissible, but I still want to provide it: When I rehearse a dance, I repeat the same steps so that I can master them. This is similar to the tiring repetition of sentences, it is not particularly fun, but it helps to memorize.
Also.