Staying IN Your Comfort Zone

How many times have you heard the advice from self-help gurus, “You’ve got to get out of your comfort zone”? As a former self-help junkie, I always heard that, and assumed it was true.

So I came to believe, unconsciously, that discomfort leads to success, comfort leads to failure.

Guess what? That’s a lie! One I had to heal with The Healing Codes. (And it was a stubborn one.)

A more accurate phrase that is true is you have to get out of your FAMILIAR ZONE, as Noah St. John points out in his book, The Secret Code of Success and his wonderful programs.

The distinction is crucially important.

The FAMILIAR ZONE is that place that is NOT comfortable, yet it is so familiar that you fear to leave it. But what’s behind the fear? Usually the negative belief that “change is always bad.” This belief may come first of all from your family (how did you parents view and feel and act concerning change?). It may then have been reinforced by every risk you ever took that didn’t turn out the way you wanted. “See,” your heart came to believe, “risk is bad. It never turns out well. Best to stay where you are. At least then you know what to expect.”

That’s the kind of programming you can address with a Healing Code.

What’s the Comfort Zone? It is that place where you are comforted.

Ideally, when you were a child and say you fell down and skinned your knee, and you cried and ran to mom, she would validate your feeling, (“Ouch, that knee looks like it hurts some,”), comfort you with a hug and/or a kiss, and then reoriented you to right perspective (“I’ll just clean off that scrape and put a Band-aid on and you’ll be fine”). Thus validated, comforted, and your issue taken care of, you can move on.

What that good mom did was to both acknowledge and validate your feelings, and then apply truth to the situation. The truth was that you are loved and lovable, you fell down and scraped your knee, it hurt you, but it can be taken care of.

Truth always comforts. And that is how we can get and stay in the Comfort Zone: by seeking and finding the whole truth about a situation.

You will find the most comfort when you seek and find the biggest truth.

So, let’s say that you are upset by the election results and fearful of what might happen in the future (a fear many in the U.S. feel these days, and perhaps in other countries as well). What is the deepest truth here?

For me, it’s that there is God who rules over all the kingdoms on earth, and this God is still at work and He’s not worried about what man can do. It will all fit into a big plan. You can look at the sweep of Scripture from beginning to end and you will find this truth.

Since I also believe that this God also cares about me and all the human race, I find comfort that the Big Plan is a good one. One of my favorite scriptures, in fact, is this: “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for good and not evil, to give you a future and a hope”.¹ This promise was given to the Israelites at a very dark time in their history, when they were in captivity. I believe such scriptures were given not just for that time, but for all time, for all those who will trust in that promise.

So that is one of my main Comfort Zones, the promises of God.

The Comfort Zone is also also a place of ease, flow, grace–that place you operate in when you’re coming from a place of love and truth, not fear and falsehood. The place where you’re operating from your unique design, when you’re most freely you.

The Comfort Zone should be our default, the place we run to, the place where we desire to stay. I believe the Comfort Zone is God’s will for you.

When you feel knocked out of the Comfort Zone, assume something is wrong. Almost always, there’s some fear-based, wrong belief behind it.

As I was pondering this topic, even though my head believed it, I felt resistance in my heart. Then one day  a close friend pointed out that I make things difficult for myself. I began to pay attention. Sure enough, I found all these ways I was making life more difficult than it had to be. I was regularly, albeit unconsciously, knocking myself out of the Comfort Zone.

When an issue like this comes to mind, I often pray for God to shed his light on the issue.

What came to mind this time were the words of a woman who had a radio show I listened to for many years when I was raising children and able to listen a lot to the radio.

She said quite often, “When you have a choice between the easy way or the difficult way, always choose the difficult way.”

Bingo! I realized that I had taken in that belief that the difficult way was somehow morally better than the easy way, more pleasing to God. I even was apparently subconsciously creating difficulties that didn’t exist before, I suppose so that I could be OK that I was choosing the difficult way!

Guess what happened when I began to address that issue with The Healing Codes?

Scriptures about God being “the God of all comfort” came to mind.²  I realized that what that woman taught, even though she was a believer many people revered, was not necessarily in line with the truth. It was more in line with her own experience and beliefs, which I am free to discard in light of the bigger truth: that God is the God of all comfort. In fact the Holy Spirit is actually called the Comforter.³

So now I actively seek the Comfort Zone–that place of security in the Truth, in relationship with the “God of all comfort.” I want to find it in any situation, and I want to stay there.

It’s much easier to leave the Familiar Zone if you are moving toward the Comfort Zone. Then even if the way is scary, you have Someone to validate you, comfort you with the knowledge that “all things are working together for good,”⁴  and the strength to move on.

I’d love to help you get in, and stay in, YOUR comfort zone. Explore the options at www.HealingCodesCoaching.com.

 Notes:

1. Jeremiah 29:11
2.  2 Corinthians 1:3-5
3. John 14:16; the word has various translations, including “Comforter.”
4.  Romans 8:28