This week as part of our 40 Day Yoga Challenge, the journal reading and video spoke to the ubiquitous place known as the Comfort Zone. The photos above show me stepping waaaayyyyout of mine. On the left, I'm getting ready to jump off the black rocks and into the cool waters of Mother Superior in Marquette, MI. And on the right, you can see that I did, indeed, jump.
But back to that photo on the left: this wasn't the first time that day I'd stood at that point overlooking the lake. Probably wasn't the second or third...maybe fourth or fifth? Regardless, I stood there contemplating whether or not to actually jump. I knew what to do, I knew what I was getting into, I knew I'd be safe, I knew I could swim back to shore...and yet I still hesitated a bit longer with every jump. Why? Why do we pause when we're relatively sure of the outcome?
What is it about the repetition of a set of actions- in my example, jumping off rocks into water- that creates anxiety? Why, if we're so comfortable knowing what's going to happen, do we pause? My theory is this: we're afraid of getting what we want. For me, every time I stood at the edge of that rock, I was one step closer to how I wanted others to see me, and how I wanted to see myself: FEARLESS.
Up until the very moment captured in those photos, I had always relied on the narrative that told me "You don't get to have the easy ride through school...you don't get to have the transition to adulthood be a breeze...you don't get to date the cute guy you have a crush on...you don't get to have the great job...you don't get the bank account that's never overdrawn...you don't get to have grand adventures..." You catch my drift? It's the story that helped form my work ethic, helped me learn about perseverance, helped me be someone who can endure, And yet.
Back up to a few years before those photos were taken. I was in Chicago for a work conference, and one of my friends from high school met me for catch up over cocktails. We ended up recommending books to each other, titles that (we thought) shaped our lives. I recommended to him "The Pecking Order" by Dalton Conley, and he recommended to me "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie.
If we wait until we're ready, we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives.
I was married at the time. My now ex-husband was and still is an alcoholic. In an effort to seem on top of the game, I had turned into a control freak. I was an enabler, letting my anger at his alcoholism feed the narrative of being the woman who persevered through things like this, who endured a shitty marriage, who managed to keep it together just how I liked it-perfect- despite that one thing being out of my control.
I read that book. The big takeaway?
"Other people's problems are not your problems."
I must have read that line a thousand times. It was exactly what I needed to hear, and nothing that I wanted to hear. My entire identity was dependent on suffering, and here was this one line in this one book. I was at that rock's edge before I was actually there, right? And that line shoved me off the rock, both hands against my back. I couldn't NOT jump.
Granted, it took three more years to actually leave. And you'd think that I'd have been okay with my new life. But then I found myself literally on that rock, looking down at the lake. And I was a bit paralyzed by the notion that jumping continuously was proving me to be someone who persevered, someone who endured, someone who faced things that scared her, someone who was FEARLESS. I had a new identity to forge, one jump at a time.
Since that time, I've made a commitment to myself to always be adventurous, always be curious, and to continuously evolve. My Comfort Zone is still there- I still like to be in control- but the signals of change are not as aggressive with the push these days. I've learned to be receptive to the nudges from the Universe. I've gotten to the point where I can be excited and scared in equal measure about things I'd never have considered before. I'm writing new chapters all the time. My new mantra is "PBE- play by ear."
I've become the person with the job I love, whose bank account is better managed, who gets the cute guy, who goes on adventures, who can (for the most part) call herself FEARLESS.
Friends, it's not as scary as it looked.
Until next time,
XO Rachel