Comfort

Recently, I've identified a pattern in my life (and began to realize that I'm not the only one who deals with this).

Often, I find myself in the same uncomfortable situation again and again.

I'll go out with the same friend week after week, and come home feeling worse every time.
I'll go to the doctor and come home feeling horrible about myself because of something she said, something that wasn't meant to be offensive, but that I interpret in such a way, every time.
As a child, I'd try on shoes and clothes that were too small, hoping that they would fit, and being upset that they didn't, every time, and shopping became terrible.
Or I'd forget my homework or my flute or a textbook or a paper that needed to be signed, so I'd start dreading school in case I'd forget something.

So, I became comfortable living with the constant feeling of dread. Even though I knew there were ways to make things better, they seemed so big, so scary, so terrible that just sitting with the constant dread was the better way for me to go.

The first time I realized that I needed to break out of the comfort zone in order to actually hit a more comfortable place was in recovery from my eating disorder. The first couple of times I was in treatment, I wasn't ready to do anything uncomfortable. I was hoping to change my attitudes and once my attitudes were there, I'd change my behavior. Well, there's something chemical about eating disorder behaviors that influences the attitudes. I don't know whether or not it's been scientifically defined yet, but I know it's been observed, and I know it's true of myself. I know the whole "starvation syndrome" where malnutrition = more thoughts of food, and a less positive mood. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly WHY this hit me, but in my most recent (almost two years ago now) residential treatment, I realized that staying where I was comfortable, would not get me to where I wanted to be. I would most likely die in my comfort zone. And dying, really, didn't seem all that comfortable.

I likened my change of heart, change of attitude, and change of direction to standing on a cliff above a lake and jumping in backwards. Not knowing what's below me, how far it is, if I'll live or if I'll die. Now, I'd never advocate doing that IN REALITY. But metaphorically, it served me. I mean, I suppose we could just call it standing on top of the high dive and closing the eyes and jumping in backwards. But fear-wise, it definitely felt like jumping off the cliff. I began to embrace the mantra, feel the fear and do it anyway. I realized that the fear would never go away, not at this rate, and I would just need to do what I needed to do.

I could apply this to my eating disorder, and could give advice to others to do the same. It was the only thing that got me through the rut. Why, then, did it take nearly two years for me to realize that this circle I went through with the eating disorder that needed to be broken, really needed to be generalized to the rest of my life!? Good question. A lot of times, eating disorders are just a way of expressing the problems of the rest of our lives. When the eating disorders are gone, the problems are still there. Thank god for therapy.

Yeah, therapy. So I didn't realize this whole thing myself. My therapist brought up the fact that I needed to do something about my work situation, and that yes, it would be uncomfortable at first, to tell my supervisors that I would be leaving and so forth, but that I would need to leave my comfort zone (of just getting by at work and being 99% burnt out) in order to be more comfortable.

Then today, I went to the doctor. She said some things to me that made me "feel fat," and that I had predicted would happen. I had asked my nutritionist to talk to her and she agreed to, but she constantly reiterates that I need to talk to her. As do my friends who know her, and those who don't know her. I need to speak up for myself and deal with the discomfort of doing so, in order to be more comfortable with my doctor.

I can't go back in time and start writing things down so as to never forget to bring something to school, but I can stop the dread by starting now.
I can't go back in time and stop trying on clothes and shoes from departments that were too small for me to stop the negativity that comes from shopping, but I can accept my size now (I'm 23 and there is no need to try to shop in the kids department...all right, except for certain occasions it's okay to see what's there since it's cheaper. But only certain stores).

But I can speak to my doctor next week about the way I feel when we talk.
I can resign from my job. I can say goodbye to toxic friends.

And I can't expect things to go beautifully every time.
In fact, I have said goodbye to toxic friends, and they became very bitter and the drama dragged on for too long. I have also resigned from a job or two and felt disrespected and unwanted by my supervisors after doing so.
But these are not pieces of evidence why I shouldn't go out of my comfort zone. It's why I should try again and again to build more evidence as to why I should and why it's all right.

Too often, our comfort zones mean that we're settling. Sometimes, they're not even all that comfortable at all. Just a shelter. I told a friend today, hiding in your eating disorder (or whatever other comfort zone) is like hiding in a trench or a little dugout shelter in an active war zone. You have the option of getting to safety, getting to real comfort, real LIFE, but you'll have to pack up your things, book a flight, and leave everything behind. Luckily, I'd say about 99% of the time, at least in my life, it's not nearly as scary as that.

But we still need to leave that comfort zone sometimes in order to become more comfortable in our lives.

I have a lot of comfort-zone-leaving to do in the next few months.