Help! I don’t have a comfort zone!
This issue is a bit of a feelings buffet, dear readers.
(Like a regular buffet, but instead of questionably lukewarm food, you get to choose from an array of nourishing feelings-based content. Yum!)
Our first offering: a piece I wrote for ABC Life about what to do when you feel like your comfort zone has disappeared completely:
“When I was 23, my comfort zone started shrinking rapidly, for no good reason. As the months ticked on, there were many things I couldn't do the way I used to.
Each day one more thing shifted outside my rapidly disappearing comfort zone. Going to the supermarket. Driving above 80 kilometres per hour. Driving anywhere at all. These all started to fill me with terror.
It's an alarming experience.
Your comfort zone is a big part of how you define yourself. Things like, "I'm good at parties". Or even things you'd never even think of as being inside your comfort zone until they're not, like "I don't get nervous in cars".
When those things change, you start to wonder: who am I? And even more worryingly, who am I becoming?”
Read the full piece over here on ABC Life.
Also, you guys, I have a monthly column on ABC Life now! IT’S LIKE I’M AN ACTUAL WRITER WHAT NEXT A SELF-PUBLISHED E-BOOK???!!
(Note: OG Big Feelers will recognise the ABC piece from one of last year’s newsletters. I trust this fills you with the appropriate sense of smug satisfaction. May this validate all the life choices that led you here.)
More on comfort zones
If the comfort zone thing is particularly present for you right now, you may also want to read this companion piece I wrote last year just for Big Feels Clubbers.
Deciding to expand your comfort zone is one thing, but how do you know when that’s the right thing to do?
“As a society, we dole out conflicting advice about what to do when you’re having a tough time of the feelings variety.
Some say, ‘take it easy. You need to give yourself a break, and accept you’re not up to some of the things you’d usually do.’
Others will tell you, ‘you’ve got to push yourself, that’s the only way to move forward’.
Which begs the question, how do you know when to push yourself, and when to take it easy?”
Three more great pieces you may have missed
Our last three issues have each had multiple people get in touch saying ‘THIS IS THE THING I NEEDED TO HEAR RIGHT NOW.’
(Seriously, they used all caps. My ears are still ringing.)
In case any of these pieces is the thing *you* need to hear right now but you missed it first time round, here they are:
How to defuse your panic button
What do you do when big, scary thoughts won’t leave you alone? We look at one thing you can try, to make the scary thoughts less scary.
The irreplaceable Honor Eastly shares her strategy for how to deal when you’re convinced your life is a complete, irretrievable mess.
How to make self-judgement useful
Comparing yourself to others can actually be really useful, if you do it right. So uh... how do you do it right?