(After each question, you might want to pause and reflect.)
Why are comfort zones – called comfort zones…if they end up being so uncomfortable? Is another name for a comfort zone a limiting belief?
What is the benefit in a comfort zone? Could it benefit you – if you were to step outside of one of your fixed beliefs? Can you think of a mental or emotional state of mind that has become a trap?
Have you ever felt exhilarated in stepping outside of your comfort zone by allowing yourself to become vulnerable? (But have become unwilling to do it again?) Could you call this a vulnerability hangover? (The hangover of second guessing yourself along with the belief you have over committed yourself to something that requires you to keep struggling with what you do not want to do? A belief that you have flaws that “others” can take advantage of…or over exposed by the fact that you are not perfect.)
Do you have a defense mechanism that will lead you to withdraw from a situation when you are getting too close to feeling too vulnerable, too overexposed? What do you get, if you allow this defense mechanism to make your decisions for you?
What happens if you feeling that you have less to look forward to with each less than perfect day? If someone begins to become focused on their diminishing possibilities, rather than on unlimited possibilities, is it common to become defensive? Is one aspect of becoming defensive an aggressive side of a victim narrative? When is it likely for someone to believe that they have no other choice but to resort to aggression to get control of a situation? Is it when blame or shame become active?
- When someone becomes defensive and is focusing on loss of personal power or personal worth, where does the pressure come from? Is there something else to focus on when one is trying to escape unconscious self-applied pressure, such as self-blame?
Is focusing on the negative, one of the most common perceptions that defensive conditioning lead us to assume is necessary?
Is it a myth that external forces create internal emotional pressure? If trying to minimize emotional pressure are Comfort zones intended to be safety nets to avoid feeling too overexposed? When will limiting yourself to what is safe and carries no risk, ever lead you to anything but diminishing returns of self- investment? Can you change the appearance and escape the myth?
- Are you willing to at least consider stepping outside of a comfort zone? One clue about a comfort zone. When you project the value you will receive from an action of some kind – and you think the effort is not worth making – will it appear that you are making a fruitless attempt at a reward we seek? Is it then that unconscious pressure will have you shut down the possibility of taking any creative action?
- Can the willingness to take action become a reward unto itself? Is permission one of those things we rarely grant ourselves Whole- heartedly? But is there a reward for anything that we do whole-heartedly – even if the action is of not taking an action? Is just the permission to be feeling something more enlivening than feeling something without your full permission?
- Is giving yourself permission the first step in getting away from a self-limiting comfort zone?