Where are you reading this text right now? Cozy on the sofa? So let’s meet spiritually where it’s nice and comfortable: in the Shire. Please stay seated – no need to startle guiltily. Who says a life full of challenges is better?
Yes, I know, the comfort zone sounds as sexy these days as a comfortable chair, comfortable shoes and comfort cuffs on stretch pants: forbidden old, anxious, lazy, boring, weak and uncreative. Just yesterday I heard another report on the kitchen radio in which some personality developer asked you to really “leave your comfort zone” this year in order to surpass yourself. I just thought: And then? Grow where? And what for?
One challenge after the next
Permanent growth alone is not a goal, after all, that’s what cancer cells do too. But that is hardly questioned in times of global turbo capitalism. Whether on Instagram or as a podcast, “challenges” are lurking everywhere: challenges for losing weight, running marathons, renouncing alcohol, for self-optimization or for the next career leap. There are no breaks for the ego. How upset I am about this bandage advertisement in which a figure skater claims that she always wants to give 100 percent when she’s pampered. No, girl, you certainly don’t want that: like everyone else, you want to hang out on the sofa with a hot water bottle and eat ice cream. Also: If you always give 100 percent, what is left? Nothing.
Since when and why is it actually embarrassing to want to have it beautiful without pain? For most of human history, our ancestors would probably have cried with happiness at being able to live in a reliable comfort zone. Weren’t safety and security instead of daily survival challenges always the great motivation for the further development of mankind? The dream of Eden on earth – that’s why washing machines and dishwashers were invented, electricity and cars. Heated apartments instead of draughty caves, stores and refrigerators instead of the constant fear of hunger, relaxation instead of constant worry and tension.
No, the comfort zone should not be seen as a place that modern people can hardly wait to leave – the donkey corner of personality optimization, so to speak. Our reptilian brain needs a sense of security. Anyone who is permanently in fight or flight mode gets stuck in tunnel vision and blames themselves for it. “Break your limits!” coaching methods may sound tempting to the mind, but are retraumatizing to body systems with unmet safety needs. Inner resistance is always a more or less conscious self-protection measure; people should be careful with advice on forced personal development (bungee jumping! fire walking! getting married!).
Everyone draws the boundaries differently
Incidentally, the comfort zone is not static, but varies from person to person. “What we call the comfort zone is actually a part of our personality that has developed over the course of our lives as a result of our experiences and encounters,” says Hamburg psychotherapist Katja Gley. “That’s why it’s as individual as a fingerprint: Some have a wide radius in terms of comfort zone and are more willing to take risks, while others have narrow limits, even a minimal deviation from everyday processes throws them out of balance and on the brink of despair.” This can be seen on a number of trash TV shows, the concept of which is to show “celebrities” doing just that while viewers feel doubly comfortable in their sofa safety area.
So the personal comfort zone is something very intimate and a reflection of how one has dealt with experiences, challenges – and ultimately oneself in one’s life. Incidentally, fear as a companion is not a cowardly idiot, but our over-ambitious bodyguard. Also because failures are not well received in this country: only heroic stories and victories are admired. With every risk you have to take failure into account and, if necessary, be able to cope with it.
This resilience is not given to everyone – and especially not in every phase of life. After a good two years of Corona, the war in front of our open front door, 24/7 presence on the internet, streams of refugees and mega-inflation, aren’t we all “challenged” to the edge of the bearable anyway? So many certainties and habits have disappeared. We are thrown out of almost all of our usual comfort zones faster and faster: when looking at the bank account, when filling up, when heating, when helping. A protected place inside and outside has never been so valuable. I’ve been looking for peace!
No comfort without safety
Security is a basic human need, you have to be able to afford it to find it stuffy. Only then do further motivational levels such as social needs, recognition, appreciation appear on the famous “Maslow’s pyramid of needs” – and finally, as the icing on the cake of human development, self-realization. Currently, the pyramid seems to be on the top: self-actualization should patronize all other needs. According to the motto: You feel totally uncomfortable with something? Great, then you’re on the right track! Really now?
Most women would be happy to even have a comfort zone. Mentally and physically. They are socialized to constantly go beyond their limits or not to notice them at all in order to please others. Whether the mother with the flu takes pills in the advertisement because the child wants to play with her in the snow (“Mothers don’t take time off!”), or the wife feels uncomfortable because her partner urges her to like her “bourgeois” Finally leaving the comfort zone to accompany him to the swingers’ club or to endure practices that she absolutely rejects.
On the other hand, “a comfort zone in the sense of: I know what’s good for me, I’m safe and can let myself go, in the sense of a safe place, is a good starting point for rediscovering and trying things out – if you feel like it”, adds therapist Katja Gley. So feeling safe isn’t a mental hammock, it’s a jumping blanket into new adventures. Because it is only when you relax and trust that you have a clear head to see and walk new paths.
Be able to set yourself apart
I’m too old for senseless dares. But how do I recognize what motives are really worth leaving my comfortable safety zone? Controlled by external demands, driven by the optimization mania – or because I have the inner desire to experience something new? Signs go when you feel more excited than afraid to try things and your skills and powers. You feel that when you go into resonance with your own needs, using your body as a compass. And can set boundaries.
My father once said to me, when I was very young and he was as old as I am now, during one of our heated discussions, instead of the usual counter-speech: “It’s possible that you’re right. But that would mean, conversely, that almost everything I thought was right in my life was wrong. I’m too old for that. It’s too exhausting for me.” He clearly defined his comfort zone and I respected that.
Today I even understand him a bit: My Spirit Animal also seems to be a creature of habit now. When life suddenly rings at my front door and asks if I want to come out to play, I go into myself; Feel honestly into my well-trained defense mechanisms: Is there a spark of excitement? In addition to nervousness, also anticipation and curiosity about the secrets and wonders of the wilderness out there, beyond the warm cone of light from my mental and spiritual bedside lamp? Then I’m already on my way. Or do I just want the ringing to stop? Then I ignore it.
It’s the “why” that matters
“For real further development, there must always be an intrinsic motivation, a fire that burns inside and gives the drive to go beyond the comfort zone limits. Without a strong why, this will not succeed,” confirms Katja Gley. This is the opposite of what the global “just do it” turbo-capitalism has been saying for decades: keep moving at all costs, always meet new challenges, always want more. Who rests, rusts. No pain no gain. But how great can the rewards be for persistent growing pains? And why is it stuffy to simply remain who and where you are?
It takes at least three months outside of the usual circuits for a neural habitual mode to kick in that automatically processes everyday decisions in a way that saves stress and energy. New things first want to be normalized. It’s exciting, stimulating and exhausting. Before you change, whether internally or spatially, you should have a strong guiding principle.
“We shall see elves!” is the motivation that finally lets the hobbit, who loves his home and his peace and quiet, leave the Shire and embark on an adventure in “The Lord of the Rings”. So what could my personal elves be? Or does everything in me speak against it? Then I stay true to myself and at home, no matter how irrelevant my reasons may seem to others. Satisfied and grateful to be a comfort zone child.