I’m glad you’re still with me here. You were making changes in your life before you even stumbled across my blog, I know. Even if you’d only dreamed of the changes, and you’re still wracking your brain for a solution while you sit in traffic on your way to work…it counts. And if you’ve made the big changes: improved your job, gotten married, gotten divorced, moved a mountain or two of debt or depression, or found funding for your brilliant idea – I freaking love you.
Your determination and power is an inspiration to your kids, your friends, anyone who knows you.
If you’re here, you have the motivation and strength to do the right thing and leave the comfort zone.
Answer honestly, who decides what our comfort zone is anyway? Ourselves? When did we decide our goal was to settle for just getting by? Or did we just stay behind the line of the expectations of others? Like these gems you’ve heard before: be happy you’re employed, stick with it, hard work pays off, you need to work at a marriage, etc…Basically, stay in the comfort zone defined by others.
We got to get outta there. Getting on the path to our meaningful and happy lives has to include leaving the comfort zone. We defeat ourselves when our comfort zones make us miserable, but we’re uncomfortable with leaving. We worry about disappointing others, all kinds of people, from our own parents to our bosses – who, by the way, are not worried about disappointing us. The truth is being miserable is the wrong slow path, the slow path of endless cycles, of deteriorating mental and physical health and setting a poor example for the people we care about.
You’re doing the right thing the moment you to decide to make your life better. The moment you protect your heart and start looking at the map for the place where you can open your heart again, where it will be safe. Like I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter how fast our journey is, as long as we start it.
I know what the right thing is for me – as I’ve been on this journey for several years, but turns out that for someone else, my “right thing” was taking that particular someone else out of his comfort zone. He laid it out for me so matter-of-factly: We “can’t” legally separate because we have to leave a legacy for our kids, and our arrangement is fine (It’s not, we share a special kind of long-term misery). He was talking about the house and other expenses.
His expectation was that I’d stay in his comfort zone. Never mind that the whole experience under the same roof is chaotic and heavily influenced by alcohol, weed and anger, I should stay for the kids (The youngest is 19, and the other two have just graduated from college.). Also, I should go to therapy to fix my view of things.
So, who decides what the right thing is?
Well, our reality is created when we make it real, and, likewise, once we’ve decided what the right thing for us to do is, we are instantly on that path. Once we’ve spoken it out loud, it’s real, and the universe knows, too.
I’ve left the comfort zone, and it’s a relief. Speaking my intentions out loud was a scary step, but since then, I’ve spoken with lawyers, a law professor friend, a real estate friend, and my daughters, the oldest of whom live-texted the event from behind her bedroom door to my other two young adult children.
You can only begin improving your life dramatically if you get out of the comfort zone. Shake up your life, speak your intentions out loud. Move!
Big changes haven’t happened since that conversation, but I’m here, doing it slowly. We can’t realistically drop everything else in our lives in the name of positive change, some of us can only take small steps, and probably not even daily. It’s a slow journey held up by work, family, school, illness, transportation, worry, all kinds of things for all kinds of us.
Keep planning, keep hoping, and stay flexible.
Get out for a walk when you feel like you can’t breathe. Get up, find a room with no one in it, even the bathroom, and stretch your body, keep it in use, break up the tension. Breathe in, arms up, breathe out, arms down. Slowly. Do it again. This is best done slowly.
Choose your next small step. Maybe it’s just writing down a list of phone numbers of people who will help you, or websites and email addresses of people who will answer your questions or are waiting for your amazing cover letter. Write the list today, carve out 20 minutes to make the calls tomorrow.
You’re doing great, and you’re still you.
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The Slow Sojourn 