Comfort Queen

At the retreat I was privileged to attend on my first weekend in Ajijic Mexico, Pema Chodron taught about the wisdom of leaving our comfort zone, stretching beyond our usual experience to enter our challenge zone, our learning zone. She drew a target circle with the comfort zone in the center, a challenge/learning zone around that, and an excessive risk zone at the perimeter of the circle. As a “comfort queen” myself, the teaching was immediately challenging! Then, ah, Pema reassures us that being comfortable is necessary for a human being sometimes, only counterproductive when we get stuck there, and stop growing.

The teaching is timely because coming here to live is definitely stretching me. Does my missing a comfortable chair and a bathtub and a few other things, interfere with my determination to keep growing? Well no, I did let them go to make this new life happen. And Pema reminds me that the comfort zone actually becomes larger, as we step out of it to learn and grow. I do experience fewer things as threatening now. More ease, even in situations (like flagging down the bus on the highway today to go to the hot springs) that previously would have made me uncomfortable— that’s a compelling motive in itself to step out.

At the retreat Pema taught that adversity or loss as a form of discomfort can also be a growthful edge. This I have experienced this past year in a powerful way. Though a painful situation looked the same as similar ones in my past, it became my big chance— and I changed, dropped a 50 year long habitual pattern of response. I am not grateful for pain or any harm done to me, but I am grateful for the results in me of the suffering. One result was that, because my response was different from my long pattern, I can now keep my heart open. Another was that my vulnerability empowered my connection with all other human beings experiencing loss. And I’m glad to report that, as Pema teaches, stepping out of my comfort zone in this loss has widened that zone for my own fussy comfort queen.

Pema’s teachings on comfort zone are so useful because we live in a time when threats bombard us through the media constantly. If we never step out of our comfort zone, it shrinks and shrinks, and more things become threatening. We can counteract this shrinking. We can reclaim our belief in basic goodness, or pretend it, for starters. We can open, an inch at a time, one day at a time, to a learning zone that will not only keep each one of us growing all our lives long, but will burst through fears to connect us to one another, and expand the comfort zone for the world.