what if you get out of your comfort zone

Dear Bloggers,

You probably all had it once that you were pushed out of your comfort zone. And hopefully it got start thinking about the ones who do that and especially why are they doing that. My reaction is that they try to get rid of their own bad feelings by pushing someone else over. I am one of those people that has been pushed to all the edges of life and yes I learned a lot out of these experiences. You've seen in your life some inspirational quotes that encourage you to get out and do something strange. Something you wouldn't normally do, like for example bungee jumping or parachuting but getting out of your routine just takes so much work. There's actually a lot of science that explains why it's so hard to break out of your comfort zone and why it's good for you when you do it. With a little understanding and a few adjustments, you can break away from your routine and do great things.

It's important to push the boundaries of your comfort zone, and when you do, it's kind of a big deal. But what is the "comfort zone" exactly? Why is it that we tend to get comfortable with the familiar and our routines, but when we're introduced to new and interesting things, the glimmer fades so quickly? Finally, what benefit do we derive from breaking out of our comfort zone, and how do we do it? Answering all those questions is a tall order, but it's not too hard to do. Let me get started.

Simply, your comfort zone is a behavioral space where your activities and behaviors fit a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk. Yes it's that simple. It provides a state of mental security. You benefit in obvious ways: regular happiness, low anxiety, and reduced stress.

The idea of the comfort zone goes back to a classic experiment in psychology. Back in 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson they explained that a state of relative comfort created a steady level of performance. In order to maximize performance, however, we need a state of relative anxiety, a space where our stress levels are slightly higher than normal. This space is called "Optimal Anxiety," and it's just outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and we're too stressed to be productive, and our performance drops off sharply.

The idea of optimal anxiety isn't anything new. Anyone who's ever pushed themselves to get to the next level or accomplish something knows that when you really challenge yourself, you can turn up amazing results. However, pushing too hard can actually cause a negative result, and reinforce the idea that challenging yourself is a bad idea. It's our natural tendency to return to an anxiety neutral, comfortable state. You can understand why it's so hard to kick your brain out of your comfort zone.

Even so, your comfort zone is neither a good or bad thing. It's a natural state that most people trend towards. Leaving it means increased risk and anxiety, which can have positive and negative results (which we'll get to in a moment). We all need that head-space where we're least anxious and stressed so we can process the benefits we get when we leave it. Question is what will you get when you break free and try out new things?

Optimal anxiety is that place where your mental productivity and performance reach their peak. Still, "increased performance" and "enhanced productivity" just sound like "doing more stuff." What do you really get when you're willing to step outside of your comfort zone?

You'll be more productive as comfort kills productivity because without the sense of unease that comes from having deadlines and expectations, we tend to relax and do the minimum required to get by. We lose the drive and ambition to do more and learn new things. We also fall into the so called “work trap” where we feign "being busy" as a way to stay in our comfort zones and avoid doing new things. Pushing your personal boundaries can help you hit your stride sooner, get more done, and find smarter ways to work. Using the brain is not painful.

You'll have an easier time dealing with new and unexpected changes. Let me explain to you that one of the worst things we can do is pretending fear and uncertainty as they don't really exist. By taking risks in a controlled fashion and challenging yourself to things you normally wouldn't do, you can experience some of that uncertainty in a controlled, manageable environment. Learning to live outside your comfort zone when you choose to can prep you for life changes that force you out of it. It sounds so easy but still you are the one that needs to take these steps.

You'll find it easier to push your boundaries in the future. Once you start stepping out of your comfort zone, it gets easier over time. As you step out of your comfort zone, you'll become accustomed to that state of optimal anxiety. "Productive discomfort," as they call it, becomes more normal to you, and you're willing to push further before your performance falls off. You'll see that if you challenge yourself, your comfort zone adjusts so what was difficult and anxiety-inducing becomes easier when you repeat it.

You'll find it easier to brainstorm and harness your creativity. This is a soft benefit, but it's fairly common knowledge (and it's easily reproducible) that seeking new experiences, learning new skills, and opening the door to new ideas inspire us and educate us in a way that little else does. Trying new things can make us reflect on our old ideas and where they clash with our new knowledge, and inspire us to learn more and challenge our tendency to only seek out information we already agree with. Even in the short term, a positively uncomfortable experience can help us brainstorm, see old problems in a new light, and tackle the challenges we face with new energy.
The benefits you get after stepping outside of your comfort zone can linger. There's the overall self-improvement you get through the skills you're learning, the new foods you're trying, the new country you're visiting, and the new job you're interviewing for. There's also the soft mental benefits you get from broadening your horizons.

How to break out of your comfort zone. Outside your comfort zone can be a good place to be, as long as you don't tip the scales too far. It's important to remember there's a difference between the kind of controlled anxiety we're talking about and the very real anxiety that many people struggle with every day. Every one's comfort zone is different, and what may expand your horizons may paralyze someone else.
Here are some ways to break out (and by proxy, expand) your comfort zone without going too far:

Do everyday things differently. Take a different route to work. Try a new restaurant without checking. Whether the change you make is large or small, make a change in the way you do things on a day-to-day basis. Look for the perspective that comes from any change, even if it's negative. Don't be put off if things don't work out the way you planned.

Take your time making decisions. Sometimes slowing down is all it takes to make you uncomfortable, especially if speed and quick thinking are prized in your work or personal life. Slow down, and observe what's going on, take your time to interpret what you see, and then intervene. Sometimes just defending your right to make an educated decision can push you out of your comfort zone. Think first, don't just react.

Trust yourself and make snap decisions. We're contradicting ourselves, but there's a good reason. Just as there are people who thrive on snap decisions, others are more comfortable weighing all of the possible options several times, over and over again. Sometimes making a decision is in order, just to get things moving. Doing so can help you kick start your personal projects and teach you to trust your own judgement. It'll also show you there's fallout to quick decisions as well as slow ones.

Do it in small steps. It takes a lot of courage to break out of your comfort zone. You get the same benefits whether you go in with both feet as you do if you start slow, so don't be afraid to start slow. If you're socially anxious, don't assume you have to muster the courage to ask your crush on a date right away, just say hello to them and see where you can go from there. 
 
There are lots of other ways to stretch your personal boundaries. You could learn a new language or skill and it doesn't have to be expensive or difficult to do. The experiences you have may be mind-blowing or regrettable, but that doesn't matter. The point is that you're doing it, and you're pushing yourself past the mental blocks that tell you to do nothing.

You can't live outside of your comfort zone all the time. You need to come back from time to time to process your experiences. The last thing you want is for the new and interesting to quickly become commonplace and boring. This phenomenon, called hedonistic adaptation, is the natural tendency to be impressed by new things only to have the incredible become ordinary after a short time. It's why we can have access to the greatest repository of human knowledge ever created (the Internet) at our fingertips (on our smart phones) and still get so bored that all we think of is how quickly we can get newer, faster access. In one way it drives us forward, but in another it keeps us from appreciating the subtle and the everyday.

You can fight this by trying new, smaller things. Ordering something new at a restaurant where you get the same thing every visit can be eye-opening the same way visiting a new country can be, and both push you out of your comfortable spaces. Diversify the challenges you embrace so you don't just push your boundaries in the same direction. You still get the challenge, but you broaden your horizons in a different way.

Take it slow, and make stretching your boundaries a habit of its own The point of stepping out of your comfort zone is to embrace new experiences and to get to that state of optimal anxiety in a controlled, managed way, not to stress yourself out. Take time to reflect on your experiences Then do something else interesting and new. Make it a habit if you can. Try something new every week, or every month. Just what suits you. I have committed myself to doing something weird and new every month, just to test my own boundaries.
Similarly, don't limit yourself to big, huge experiences. Maybe meditation pushes you out of your comfort zone just as much as bungee jumping. Try the former if you've already done the latter. The goal isn't to become an adrenaline junkie. You just want to learn what you're really capable of. That's another reason why it's important to return to a comfortable state of mind sometimes and just relax. 

 
Just don't forget to bring back as much as you can carry from those inspired, creative, productive, and slightly uncomfortable moments as it is your luggage in life.


The Old Sailor,

Day Dreaming

Dear Bloggers,

A couple of days ago we had a bit of stormy weather and at these moments my brain is running like a ships main engine. Just running a bit faster in a tempo that can be followed. As the wind is howling around the bus and rain is bashing on the windows, I need to wait for a couple of minutes to start the next round again. 

My thoughts are drifting away again. I am memorizing my time and life at sea. A great time with some happy and some sad moments. Yes, I loved it and now I am getting too old with too many complicated extras being a diabetic and suffering from fibromyalgia a life at sea is nearly impossible. Yes, I have some odd fantasies. Wait, that sounds not right, maybe for some really bad. During stormy weather I day-dream a lot. When I day-dream I am getting carried away. Maybe it’s a normal human being thing. I cannot look inside your brain.

 

Whatever, I could day-dream for a whole day, and I have done that before. The good part is anything is possible in a day-dream. When I used to get really angry during my time just after my time at sea. I’d got to my island and cooled down under the palm trees. Yes, I have an island. I also have a ship. But it’s all in my head unfortunately. I turned on the Computer to see “The perfect storm”one of the films I really love to watch. Even though it is not all that realistic.

I day dreamed all the way through it because the film did not catch me this time. The thing I can remember was George Clooney is sailing out with his crew and I was a deck hand. I came around from my day at the day-dream merry go round and thought “what the fuck? This is even more fucked up than my normal day-dream” and went back to whatever else I was thinking about.

Today my fantasies merged with reality and I’ve been searching for small motor ships for sale on the Internet for the last hour. I should be sleeping as it is nearly midnight when I am writing this blog, but never mind. I wish I could buy my family a small motor ship like this.

It has to be the right kind of ship. It has to have the right shape, I found an awesome one with cannons, although I don’t think they are necessary on the Frisian lakes (tempting as it is to track down my wife her ex-boyfriends and enemy’s and fire at them). Burn bastards burn!!!

Problem is, I can’t afford a ship (although there are some smaller ships for sale here in the neighborhood that would cost the same as a car) and I do know how to sail a ship, I do know enough people so they could help me sail the ship, or the people who I do know who could help me to patch up the ship, plus I’d have to sail to get them. So that means no ship, no island with sand and sunshine and I’ll have to stick with driving buses because I currently have no back up plan, unless I suddenly become a famous artist or win a lottery. In which case this is an endless cycle of fantasy but maybe I’d be rich and then I could afford a boat and a new tattoo.

This is all pretty pointless but it’s better than thinking about killing yourself or other negative thoughts, You can call me sick but I am having funny and happy day dreams.

Anyway, a total pointless story, but it indulged my imagination for a bit. Now I’m thinking of my next tattoo…..

The Old Sailor,

Growing older feels like time is catching up with me

Dear Bloggers,

I was sitting down tonight and my thoughts were about life again and how lucky I should consider myself, I have a great family and the girls are growing up faster as I thought. Even though I am enjoying every moment of all the situations that occur and the things they do discuss with us and the things that keep them busy. But also the music they are listening to (some of the songs I never heard before).

Although it is a widely accepted that, "The older you get, the faster time seems to go." But why should aging have this effect? After all, there is the parallel that says, "Time flies when you are having fun." But as we age, time flies whether we are having fun or not.

Question is of course, what's going on?
I have recently been trying to understand this question, because for the past several years many of my days have been extremely long, yet the years still seem to be accelerating.

To tackle the problem, I did an Internet search to see what others were saying on the subject. Nearly all the returns had to do with parenting. "Oh, they grow up so fast. The days are long, but the years are short." This is perhaps a partial explanation; however, since the questioning started, I figured out that it occurs just as well to people who have no children, it cannot be the whole answer.

Some other comments had to do with getting religion. "I found God at the age of 30 and every day since I have been waiting to go to His kingdom. I am now in my 80s. Oh, the days have been so long, but the years have been so short." Again perhaps a partial explanation; Hmmm....the same things I hear with non believers as believers, it cannot be the whole answer either.

Many comments were also philosophical. They said simply to accept the facts and live each day to the full. Good advice I think, but again no advance in understanding.
 

I then turned to science. I typed in the search words "psychology of time". This turned up hundreds of articles, most of which were very technical, dealing with brain structure and functions, neurotransmitters and the like. To narrow the search, I typed in both "psychology of time" and "days are long". And got nothing at all!

Finally, I decided to sit down somewhere quietly and analyse the matter myself. This turned about to be a wise decision, because I think I found the solution. It's really quite simple. It all has to do with "anticipation" and "retrospection".

Whatever the nature of our individual lives, we all anticipate things that are important to us. Then after they happen, we look back at them. For example, most school children look forward to the long summer vacation, which always seems to be an eternity away. Finally, it arrives. Then, almost before they blink an eye, it's over and they are back in school again.

Progressing from primary school to secondary school is another excruciating anticipation for a youngster, especially if the move is perceived as being an important step away from childhood into adulthood.

And so it goes on and on. When anticipated, each new significant event seems to be extremely far away. However, after the event, we regularly look back and yell out: "Did it really happen that long ago?"

Our first love, our first heartbreak, driving a car, getting a job, marriage, etc. When we look forward, all these milestones seem impossibly far in the future. However once achieved, how quickly they fade away into the past.

The older we get, the more milestones we have to look back on. So the farther and faster they appear to fade away. So if sometimes the clock may seem to have stopped, the calendar always continues racing ahead.

For me, the high point of my life was joining the army and serving as a soldier for my country was teaching me that life was not always fun. And they thought me to be disciplined. I applied for a peace keeping force post early in my career and was trained for special peace tasks. Processing the application took only about three months -- perhaps the longest three months of my life. It seemed more like three years. I was accepted but not sent abroad as the Dutch government decided differently. 

After a while I realized that I should consider myself lucky as I met guys who came back from these scattered countries – I still help some of them with getting their life on track and help them with a listening ear and lend them a hand when they have to make a new start again. the easiest way of living my life, because I am having so much fun.

I of course have had many other milestones in my life, which are all rapidly hurtling away from me. Even the most recent ones already seem to be covered in dust. I am now 46. I don't feel old, but somehow I just can't get my mind around the fact that many of these things already look like ancient history.

If accumulating milestones is truly the secret of the accelerating years, what do we do about it? Basically nothing; we just have to accept it. However, this is not necessarily a negative. True, the good things are coursing away faster and faster into the past. But so are also the not-so-good things.

Whether positive or negative, nothing in life lasts forever, even if it sometimes feels as if it will. We are certain of this because we know even life itself doesn't last forever. We are all born to die. What happens after that is the subject of considerable controversy. But whatever it is, we are certain it is going to happen, and that it will almost certainly be different from whatever we know today.

Since I am now in my fourth decade (I am 46), for me this inevitability will probably occur sometime within the next 30-40 years, and almost certainly within the next 50 years. This seems like a very long time. However, the years are accelerating, so when it does occur my most probable reaction will be: "What! Already!" On the other hand I have done so many fun things in my life. If I would drop dead tomorrow I would call it bad luck for the rest of my family.

Enjoy every day you've got left, you never know what might happen.

The Old Sailor,

I was thinking about leaving

Dear Bloggers,

As I read through the web for conversations, questions, ideas about depression, I am struck by how many people who write to forums and blogs are desperately asking for help not for their own depression but for that of their spouses, partners, loved ones. So often, they report bewilderment. They feel stunned to find anger and rejection in place of love. How can it be that the person I have known so well is suddenly different, alien, hostile and wants to break out of the relationship that is so precious? 
 

What is this longing to leave that so many depressed people feel? I have no simple answer to that, but I can describe my own tortured experience with an almost irresistible drive to break out and start a new life.
I spent many years feeling deeply unsettled and unhappy in ways I could not understand. Flaring up in anger at my wife and two great young girls became a common occurrence. I’d carry around resentments about being held back and unsatisfied with my life, fantasizing about other places, other women, other lives I could and should be leading. 
 

My usual mode was to bottle up my deepest feelings, making it all the more likely that when they surfaced it would be in weird and destructive ways. I’d seethe with barely suppressed anger, lash out in rage and, of course, deny angrily that anything was wrong when confronted by my wife.

I was often living on the edge, but there were two threads of awareness I could hold onto that restrained me invisibly. One was the inner sense that until I faced and dealt with whatever was boiling inside me, I would only transplant that misery to a new place, a new life and a new lover. However exciting I might imagine it would be to walk into that new world, I knew in my heart that it would only be a matter of time before the same problems re-emerged.
The other was a question I kept asking myself : “What is it that I am leaving for? ” What was this great future and life that I would be stepping into? Could I even see it clearly? More often than not, the fantasy portrayed a level of excitement I was missing. Crazy thoughts or a very lively fantasy I would call it now.

Some buried part of me knew that a life based on getting high on non-stop brain-blowing excitement wasn’t a life at all. Maybe it wasn’t alcohol or drugs that lured me, but it was surely the promise of intense and thrilling experiences, the opening scene of an adventure film without the need to wait for the complicated plot to unravel. There was no real alternative woman out there waiting for me, only a series of fantasies with easy gratification, never the hard part of dealing with a complicated human being in a sustained relationship. And inwardly I knew, I would still face the fears, depression and paralysis of will that had plagued me for so long.

That bit of consciousness kept me from breaking everything up and leaving the wonderful family that I’m blessed with.

So just imagine what my wife was going through. She had to face the rejection of my anger at the deepest levels. At the worst of it, she had to hear me telling her she wasn’t enough for me, that I needed more than she could give. And the tension and pain between us, the frequent rage that I felt, spilled into the lives of my children in ways that slowly and painfully were to emerge over time. 

That is the hardest part of talking about this now, to grasp how my closest loved ones disappeared from awareness into the haze of my own self-hatred, my own feeling of emptiness that I was desperately trying to fill. I had no idea how my behavior spread in its impact, like widening circles in water, to touch so many around me I’ll continue with this theme and try to get at what can be done or said to someone possessed of a longing to leave.

The longing to leave one’s intimate partner brings out something that isn’t much discussed in descriptions of depression. It is the active face of the illness. We often focus on the passive symptoms, the inactivity, the isolation, sense of worthlessness, disruption of focused thought, lack of will to do anything. But paradoxically the inner loss and need can drive depressed people to frenzied action to fill the great emptiness in the center of their lives. They may long to replace that inadequate self with an imagined new one that makes up for every loss. 
 

My experience with this phase of illness occurred when I had only limited awareness of the hold depression had on me. That may be a key to understanding the dynamic and how to respond to someone in the grip of this drive to turn life upside down. Unhappy without knowing why, I had to find an explanation, and the easiest way to do that was to look outward. I could only see my present life, my wife, my work as holding me back, frustrating my deepest desires. In effect, I was blaming everyone but me for my misery. In that state, I could only focus on the promise of leaving, finding a new mate, new work, new everything.

Every suggestion my wife might make that there was something wrong with me only brought the angriest denial. Every time she said how much she loved me only felt like a demand that I stay stuck in this unfulfilling life and do what she wanted me to do. I knew so clearly that I was not the problem, certainly not sick but for the first time on the verge of escaping into the exciting life I should have been living all along.

There is something very close to the power of addiction in the fantasy of escape. I found it almost impossible to see through the dreams of a new life. It meant so much – my survival as a person seemed to be at stake. Unaware of the full effect of depression, blocking out what my wife and others were trying to tell me, I inflicted a lot of pain on my family, thinking that I had to be brutally honest in order to save myself. Fortunately, as I noted in the last post on this subject, I had been through enough work in therapy to have glimmers of the truth, and that helped me step back from the brink.

I’m big on offering advice, but the potentially devastating impacts of depressed people on those closest to them leads me to go a bit beyond just reflecting on what I’ve been through. I see it different now my wife is stuck in a similar situation that has caused a burn out due to her boss.

If you’re trying to deal with the sudden transformation of an intimate partner, get help, starting with friends and family. You’ve likely felt such a deep assault and wound that it would be easy to get lost in the sheer humiliation, hurt and anger of the experience, searching for what you’ve done wrong, what you could do or say to set things right. That’s a trap set for you by the voice of depression. That voice tries to persuade you, just as it has persuaded your loved one, that it’s your fault. Not true. It’s your partner’s illness that’s at the root of it. 

Those closest to you and your partner have doubtless noticed something strange and may have been hurt as well by new behavior. That will remind you that you’re not alone in this. And remember that you can’t cure someone else with your words and love. They only backfire. At most, you can help your partner gradually gain awareness. It will take the combined influence of you and many others to get a depressed person to start seeing a different explanation for what’s wrong. Only your partner can do the heavy lifting. Only your partner can experience the inner change of thought and feeling that comes with the recognition that there is an illness to be dealt with.

I realize how different everyone’s experience is about the impact of depression on their marriage, and how desperately hard everyone works to reach what is for them the right answer about staying married or not. For me, though, it was a fantasy born of depression. I often wonder how it is, given where I began in my struggle to build a loving relationship with another human being, that my wife and I have stayed married for so long. “Marriage is survival,” I once heard someone say at a wedding, and the uncomfortable laughter in his large audience confirmed the truth of it. Despite all our struggles, we’ve managed to survive the worst of times.

For so many years, though, and long beyond adolescent dreams, I was searching obsessively not for the real work of two people always learning about each other. Depressed and full of shame at who I was, I searched desperately for someone who would make up what was missing, gifting me the worth I felt I lacked, so that I could feel like a whole person at last. I simply imagined I was falling in love. 

It would start with an attraction that soon became obsessive for a woman whose spirit and warmth I reached for instinctively to take in as my own. This was falling in love in a strangely one-sided way. I needed the responsiveness of the other person, to be sure, but only to a certain point. I can try to explain with a story, really a moment when something began to get through to my isolated mind.

I had, or imagined I had, an intense bond with K for nearly a year in my late teens. Her loving me meant everything. She was beautiful, talented and lively, and deep down I felt not just proud that she was part of my life, I felt alive and justified because of her presence. More than that, I projected into the minds of everyone I met the love of my live because such a woman loved me. That was the reality of what I needed from her, the sense of self-worth that I lacked on my own. I ignored what was clearly happening so desperate was I to believe that we would be together forever. After all, I was nothing without her. Our relationship came to end and I have been sick for days. My life was over. I promised myself not to start a relation again but to enjoy life

I was home, and we were up early, getting dressed and ready to get up for breakfast. I was avoiding deep talk. The windows were open to a fine Dutch winter morning. I was dousing my face with cold water in the bathroom as I had great hangover when suddenly I was startled by a beautiful singing voice floating in coming from the bedroom. It was a woman’s voice pouring a haunting melody into the air. It seemed to surround me, and the feeling and the sheer beauty of the tone put everything else out of my mind. I relaxed into its flow for a few still moments, and then I started to move. I had to find out where my future would start again. It seemed that I was ready for life again and I opened my heart and started a relationship again with the woman that I now call my wife. When I snapped out of my memories, I walked back to the bedroom and found my wife quietly sweeping a brush through her long blond hair.

“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That incredible singing – it was the most beautiful thing. Where could it have come from?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “that was just the alarm clock.”
“Just now? Just right now? I mean, it stopped a few seconds ago.”
She nodded slowly, still brushing.
“I mean … I never heard that song before.”
She smiled into the mirror. “Well… now you have.”
She finished brushing her hair. We got our clothes on and left the room. 
 

To say I crashed when she left is putting it mildly. What could happen when my sense of who I was and what I was worth in the world walked away? Gone! There was nothing left! I would start drinking heavily, fall into complete depression, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work, crying a lot, burned with the obsession of having to get her back. For the second time in my life, I don't think I will survive and end up at a psychiatrist. To heal enough so that I could function. Then I’d be able to resume my obsessive quest for a woman to make me feel whole again!

And so the pattern continues for years. When I met my wife and we got married, things seemed so different. But as soon as we got past the intense early years into the time when the relationship gets real or gets broken, I picked up again the habit of obsessing over that shortcut to fulfillment. I could dream of other women, other places, other careers that would end the inner fear, emptiness and pain. It was the sort of dreaming that would always keep me from hearing the song close by. The dreams gave me a way out instead of opening up and talking to the woman who loved me about the real crisis I was in. There was always a fantasy person elsewhere who wouldn’t need all that talking and honesty!

It took me many years, but finally the escape artist in me called it quits. Those fantasies came in such abundance that I just couldn’t take them seriously anymore. Only then could I get on with the work of recovery and the work of marriage.

I understand now when my wife says to me: “Are you still in love with me and if you don't than you should leave.” I guess that she is having a hard time now.



The Old Sailor,