Comfort Zone

Hello and welcome to the calmcast, a time to feel calm and think clearly. I'm Claire Downham, the queen of calm, a transformational life coach. I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same. The Calm cast is a series of short explorations, gently guiding you back to your natural state, which is calm and clarity. Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity. There's nothing else to do now. Let's relax into today's episode.

So today I'm going to talk about the comfort zone. And that was after I had a huge realization last week during a conversation. Now I'd already started really to see something about the comfort zone because when I heard people talk about it, I started to think, oh, is, is that real? Is that when you say the comfort zone, it almost to me sounds like there's a rigid thing around somebody stopping them moving forward. Now it might feel very rigid, but it isn't really. But it's really, really difficult to see that it isn't often. So my experience in the last week or so was really interesting. I was in a conversation with somebody with a client of mine and he was talking, he's a marketing person and so we're having a really great conversation. And as I was talking he said, and I've got a suggestion for you, but you might feel it's, you might, it might be outside. No, it's probably outside your comfort zone. He said, and I said, oh, oh, go on then, what's your suggestion? And he said, well, he said what you do and what you share it would be amazing on the radio. Why don't you do something about that? And so I, and I said, and I thought, oh, that's interesting. What I noticed was, what I noticed was, I think in the past if somebody had said that to me, my whole body would have responded with angst and resistance and a sense of pushing back against that. And what ordinarily would have happened after that call is that I would have proceeded to do nothing about that. I really would have thought about it and I probably would have had it on my list for a little while and then I would have skirted around it for a really, really long time and then probably never done it. And what I noticed was, first of all, when he said, why don't you contact some radio stations? I just thought, oh, that's an interesting idea, I might well do that. And then I came off the call, closed down the zoom and immediately went into action. I emailed one radio station. I little poke around on the Internet looking for Bauer Media, who run one of our local radio stations and lots of other radio stations, and I managed to find them. I couldn't seem to find an email address to email them. So then I went back onto LinkedIn and I thought, you know what? I bet I know somebody in my network who's connected. I know I did. I know somebody who works. So I messaged them and then I thought, oh, there's, there's other local radio stations to me, why don't I message them as well? So I did. So I emailed a local radio station and I messaged somebody on LinkedIn and I'd done that within five minutes of finishing the call with the man who had suggested it. Now, there is no I. I know, you know, I've known myself a long time and I know that probably even a few months before this, I wouldn't have had the gall to do that. I mean, had the goal even as an idea is ridiculous, isn't it? I wouldn't, I would just wouldn't have done it because I would have listened to the voices in my head and those voices would have said things like, you can't do that. They're going to reject you. What's the point? You're going to look stupid. You can't be on radio, yada, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure you are very familiar with those voices that you have too. They are not unfamiliar to most of us, I think, but what I noticed was those voices didn't even really pop up, which is really interesting now. I spent a long time trying to change my thinking. I did affirmations, I did meditation, I did lots of therapy, lots of hypnotherapy and lots of going around in the past, down into the past to try and find out why I didn't do certain things and why I procrastinated. I did a lot of that and I haven't done that for two and a half years. And what's happened through a process of not taking my thinking so seriously. Because let's be clear here, your comfort zone does not exist except in your thinking. There is not an actual barrier stopping you from doing things. It doesn't exist. It's your thinking about everything and about you that is creating your entire reality. What your you think you can do, what you think you can't do, what you do then do and don't do. The comfort zone is just a Collection of thoughts. And when we start to see this, we can start to. I don't know if the word, the phrase release ourselves from it is quite right, but for me, it's. It's getting. It feels like it's gone through stages. Like there was a stage where everything that went through here I took seriously. Everything I thought about myself, about other people, about life, about the rules and how it should be, and mostly how it should be, Claire's way. And all of that looked absolutely true. And then I think there was a phase when I became much more aware that there was this energy of life that was me, the real me, the real you, by the way, too. And that there was thinking and that those two things were not really. Didn't really. They're part of the same energy. But there is something about the thinking that we do that is. Is. Is picked up old stuff from other people's ideas about us and who we are and how we are and, you know, just the things we've learned. So there was this phase where I would be still aware that certain kinds of thinking were happening, but able to let them pass. And I think what's happened over time is that the. They stopped turning up. A lot of that kind of thinking has just stopped turning up. And I. I love. I like the metaphor of a toddler. So I've got two children. They are 22 and 20 now, so they're not toddlers anymore, but they were toddlers once upon a time, and they went through the usual phase, that toddler demanding that you do things or give them things or, you know, give them chocolate in the supermarket or whatever, and me having to say no and me sticking to my guns with that. Now, I know that's not the easiest thing to do as a parent, but that's my. Probably my only parenting tip I ever give out is stick to your guns. You know, if you've said no, you can't have chocolate, then don't give in to the screaming and crying and carrying on, but tell them it's okay for them to be like that. It's fine. But you still don't have to give them chocolate if you don't want to give them chocolate, you know what's best for their health.

So.

And I think after a while, your toddlers just stop doing it. If you kind of stick to your guns with that. This is. This is not. This is not just. This is just an example to explain how our thinking is rather than giving you parent advice. So after a while, my children stopped doing that. They Stopped throwing themselves on the floor in the supermarket. They stopped, you know, they stopped demanding things. They just stopped doing it because they realized that just because we've gone to the supermarket didn't mean to say that we're going to have chocolate, especially if we're about to go home for lunch or something. And I guess our thinking's like that we don't have to try and change it. We can just start to have a different relationship with it and we can start to become more aware of it rather than actually thinking, oh, this is my thinking and I've got to change my thinking. I've got to do something about it. It's such a different approach. Because I tell you what, folks, I've spent a long time trying to change my thinking and all that, that did all sorts of things, but one of which was just to make me feel terrible about myself, because couldn't do it. Because it's really hard to deliberately change your thinking. Whereas as you start to take it less seriously and you're lighter with it and you let more of it go past, it ceases to be there. And this whole thing of the comfort zone is thought. It is only thought. And as you start to take it less seriously, your comfort zone will disappear because fundamentally, your thinking does not know what you are capable of. If my thinking had said, don't contact the radio station, what does my thinking know about my ability to be on the radio? It knows nothing. Nothing at all. So there's something here. Like if you believe you have a comfort zone, that is this line where you can do things that are inside it and you can't do things that are outside it. Just start to poke some holes in it. It's not real, it's all thought. Everything is thought. Our entire reality is created through this power of thought. Once you start to see that, those old confidence can melt away. Hopefully you found that just a little bit doubtful. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working.

Out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm. This has been the calmcast with Clare Downham, Queen of Calm. Take care and keep listening.