What is the comfort zone?
Your comfort zone is made up of all the things that make you feel safe, secure, comfortable, and in control. It also contains your personal values, joy, and happiness.
All the things within your comfort zone are completely unique to you. What makes you feel safe and happy may be different from what makes someone else feel safe and happy.
You are experiencing your comfort zone when your mind and nervous system are in a regulated state.
When you’re in a regulated state, you simply feel good. You feel at ease. You can breathe easily.
When life gets stressful, your comfort zone will empower you to be resilient and feel secure within yourself.
What is outside of the comfort zone?
Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, uncertain, overwhelmed, panicked, fearful, stressed or anxious.
The things outside of the comfort zone are also unique to you. What makes you feel uncomfortable and anxious may not be the same as what makes someone else feel uncomfortable and anxious.
When you are outside of your comfort zone, your mind and nervous system move into a dysregulated state. This is also called the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response.
Experiencing dysregulation for an extended time leads to physical and mental exhaustion.
You’ll feel burnt out. Tired. Unwell.
What does it mean to expand the comfort zone?
Expansion makes your comfort zone larger.
A larger comfort zone means you’ll be capable of doing more things with a regulated nervous system. More happiness, less stress.
Expanding your comfort zone means growing into a better version of yourself.
Imagine a version of you that feels empowered to live by your personal values. A version of you that is in control of the trajectory of your life. A version of you that feels good more often.
If it were completely up to you, with no one else having any say in it, how would you choose to live?
If you’re not already living the life you truly want for yourself, then expanding your comfort zone is the path towards getting there.
How do I expand my comfort zone?
Imagine your comfort zone as a safe bubble around you.
To expand, you need to be willing to push at the edge of your bubble.
It doesn’t have to be a hard push.
Every small, gentle nudge will help your bubble to grow. It all adds up.
There are a lot of different ways to do this.
Which is why I started Expand My Comfort.
In my blog, I will be sharing stories, inspiration and comfort zone expansion discoveries with you.
So that you can explore and discover how to expand your unique comfort zone.
Summary
The comfort zone keeps your nervous system regulated. It is everything that makes you feel safe and happy.
Outside the comfort zone creates nervous system dysregulation. It is everything that makes you feel stressed and anxious. It leads to burnout.
Expanding your comfort zone means being able to do more things with a regulated nervous system. More happiness, less stress.