Beyond Your Comfort Zone

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch

We have been out of our comfort zone for a year now.
The pandemic has put us into this place.
Or has it?
We are stuck.
Or are we?
Question your assumptions, dare to entertain a different answer, flip the narrative.
Go deeper.

The pandemic is certainly not nothing and it is also not everything.
We long for certainty, take comfort in familiarity and sameness to ground us.
Were we comfortable and content before the pandemic?
When the pandemic is over, you’ll need another excuse.

Difficulty makes us grateful for what is gone.
Gratitude can be a way of life rather than a momentary feeling.
What we think serves us, often binds us.

Scarcity, fear, negativity, assumptions, stories, a pandemic justify our “stuckness,” frame our view, limit possibility.
In protecting ourselves from uncertainty, chaos of circumstances, unreasonableness of others, not us of course, we create blind spots and live small.
We long to figure out the ending before we take a step, find comfort in blame and try to organize life into boxes we can label and understand.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

We are meant for joy, light and fruition.
Born with a purpose and purposes, with talents and gifts to give away not to bury.
To move forward pre, middle and post pandemic and any other life transition and transformation, we must lay down what we think has served us well.
Moving forward does not negate the past, it honors it by living in the present and writing a deeper narrative by taking hold of the pen and finishing our own story.

Move into the day from a place of abundance, a thirst for mystery and a capacity for joy.
Open up to ambiguity, uncertainty and possibility found in a blank page, in the confidence and trust that we are built for metamorphosis, going from cocoon to butterfly hundreds of times though life.

Finding the holes, problems and gaps in our life, in others and in the world traps us in rearview mirror living, scarcity and cynicism. Identify and integrate the lessons and move to the next grade by applying them. Open up to new learning and expansion. Release offenses both received and given to transform the holes into wholehearted joyful daily living.

There is no real comfort in comfort zones. Ground in abundance and optimism, fueled by light and energized by possibility.

Brave, bold and brilliantly break the patterns and narratives that bind and restrict. Dare to be enthusiastic and optimistic found in wholeness rather than holes. Abundance, possibility and joy right now, today, not delayed for tomorrow, not post-pandemic or “someday” when things are perfect (not happening). From the comfort zone of the cocoon to the flight of the butterfly.

This is what my Dad would call a “kick in the ass” post. We need those now and again to wake up. I need it daily and miss him daily so this one is for you Dad.

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – R. Buckminster Fuller