Challenge yourself by breaking your comfort zone
Every year I choose to put myself in the fire by doing something difficult. The last two years doing a dieta in the jungle has challenged me to my core and beyond.
It was a powerful letting go, even more so because I was partaking in a shamanic initiation course.
Choosing to take yourself through a challenging experience is the archetypal hero’s journey: starting off innocent and without much wisdom or direction, and from there being led into the big world to be challenged and go through a rite of passage.
Until one day, you return home full of wisdom and direction.
We now live in a society full of comfort. We aren’t challenged in the same way our ancestors were by daily tasks.
It was an effort to fetch water, carry logs, and get food. Now, we have water and heat with just a couple of buttons, and Tesco will deliver food to the door with a few more clicks. Life has become too easy.
Personal growth happens when we expand our comfort zone. It doesn’t need to be a lot.
Expanding it too much at once can be difficult to integrate, or even re-traumatizing, and can overstimulate the nervous system.
I’ve personally jumped too far out of my comfort zone too many times, and it takes support and time to integrate.
By doing it gradually, step by step, it becomes far more manageable.
“How can I challenge my comfort zone every day?”
This is the way to increase your personal power and build the capacity to hold more.
This comfort zone is so individual. For some, it may be changing food habits by limiting sugar intake. For others, it may mean feeling the feelings when choosing not to have another spliff. For some, it could be telling that girl you have feelings for her.
This is the daily grind, and then there are the yearly challenges, or even rites of passage during massive life crossroads.
A teenager may experience it through a gap year by choosing to travel. Others might choose to do a big psychedelic journey or walk in the Himalayas.
This is a deeply individual path, but my belief is that life is too short to wait for anything.
We’ve got to live now.
We’ve got to seize the moment.