Years passed. I taught at a Waldorf school in Vermont, then pursued an M.A. in Counseling Psychology at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Right before the pandemic hit, I decided to move back to Michigan to start my career. During the days of quarantine, I had time and space to reflect on my life. I started to think about what was important to me—friends, family, what I wanted for my life, what I wanted to repair in it. I thought of Leah.
Posts tagged #comfort zone
Out of My Comfort Zone with Brian O'Donnell and Linda Bender
Life is calling me out of the comfort zone of middle age to the forbidding territory of old age. Middle age isn’t exactly my comfort zone either. If I’m honest I’m still clinging to youthfulness.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Beyond Comfort: Marrakesh, Entrepreneurship, and Self-Discovery
In the heart of Marrakesh, seated at a long table laden with tangerines and wafting aromatic delights, my discomfort was palpable. Surrounded by a group of 12 artist participants, all connected by history and relationships, I, the lone traveler, introduced myself. “Hi, I’m Susan from Ann Arbor and am here alone.” To which the entire group immediately replied, “No, you’re not?!”
Out of My Comfort Zone: An Inside Journey
Here’s the thing I’ve noticed about stepping out of your comfort zone: The more resistance you feel about doing the uncomfortable thing, the more learning and transformation you’ll experience when you do it.
By definition, everything on the above list fell outside of my comfort zone, and nothing on this list catalyzed resistance like healing chronic illness. Healing has been the ultimate adventure out of my comfort zone.
Out Of My Comfort Zone: Sharing My Song
I’ve never enjoyed exposing myself to potential scrutiny and criticism. Staying quietly out of the limelight seemed like a good strategy for avoiding these unpleasantries. My friendly, people-loving nature, along with a deep desire for approval, caused me to prioritize putting others at ease, and to do what I could to keep everybody comfortable. I’d always believed that was the right thing to do…the nice thing to do. In many ways it felt good, yet a disastrous cost to me of all this people-pleasing was that I was chronically tense, and I was squelching my own true self-expression.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Answering the Call to Rest
At the beginning of this year, I did what many of us do when preparing for another trip around the sun. I set about visioning, but also taking real stock and looking at the reality of the health of my enterprises, my finances, and my body. My approach to the known challenges, I decided, was to bring in freshness of perspective, make some pivots, and then put my head down and work it. My retail business and its educational programming are currently at a critical juncture, and they really needed my undivided attention and energy. Therefore, plans for personal development (i.e, retreats, trainings, coaching), travel, or casual socializing were put on hold. I felt good about this plan. I love my work. I want my business to thrive, and I needed a big turnaround in terms of finances. So, I grabbed my oar. However, a naughty word kept creeping into my thoughts…Sabbatical.*
Out of My Comfort Zone: Sometimes I Fall: The Discomfort of Asking
In response to your kind inquiry, ‘Would you be interested in writing?,’ right off the bat, I’ve been transported a few miles, to the outskirts of the town of Discomfort. I stare at its welcome sign. Founded: at the beginning of human time. Population: countless.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Stretching Out of My Comfort Zone
Generally speaking, my comfort zone is not small. I have lived in foreign countries, trekked in the Himalayas, paraglided off a 5,000 foot cliff, flown in teeny tiny planes over the Amazon rain forest, stood on my head on various mountain tops, and held a giant anaconda around my neck (that one was mostly for the photo op). But when asked to write an article about stepping out of my comfort zone, I immediately knew what I’d share. And it turns out I am not alone in this fear. In fact, it comes in at number two on the list of people’s biggest fears. It is of course, the fear of public speaking (in case you’re interested, fear of death is number one on the list).
Out of My Comfort Zone: Dare to Be with Lauren Crane
I look at a comfort zone like a backyard garden. Plant seeds—let’s say tomato—in rich soil and they’ll grow in fat and juicy abundance. Really cool, you say, this will be my tomato patch forevermore. Not so fast. If you keep planting the same crop in the same plot season after season, you’ll deplete the soil and, sadly, your bushel basket will be bare. But throw in parsnips the next year, plug in peas the year after that, and you’ll keep the soil balanced and fertile, ready for the next good thing. I’ll stop pretending that I have a green thumb and get to the point of this metaphor.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Discomfort Zone
This assignment stumped me at first. To begin with, dear Crazy Wisdom, which self are you hoping to hear from? Me as singer, music facilitator, filmmaker, spiritual practitioner, business owner, or merely human being?
Out of My Comfort Zone: Living Outside My Comfort Zone
Upon reflecting on “a single time” that I have moved outside of my zone of comfort, I am somewhat stumped. I realized while considering this topic that I virtually live outside of my comfort zone. My life is what I call “living on a prayer.” I work in the healing industry and have been a self-employed woman for well over 20 years of my 23 years of healing service.
Out of My Comfort Zone: The Paradox of Dying
I will never forget the moment when I walked into the hospice home for the first time to see my dad. A palliative care doctor recommended hospice care the day before and he was transferred to this hospice home from a rehabilitation facility. I had been his primary caretaker throughout his rapid decline—navigating the hospital scene, confronting doctors, and aggressively advocating for his care. This situation was without a doubt my comfort zone—having concrete things to fix and fixing them. I was confident in my abilities, and due to an extensive history of trauma, seemingly thrived in the chaos and intensity of the situation.
Out of My Comfort Zone: In the Space Between My Comfort Zones
Does exhaling take you out of your comfort zone? How about taking a step out ahead of you? How about the first pangs of hunger, or the chill of the air, when you step outdoors on a cold day?
Out of My Comfort Zone: Being a Parent to a Parent
I couldn’t find her anywhere. I went to all the places where she could be, asked store clerks, drove by frequented bus stops and walking patterns, and then went back to her apartment. In her bedroom I found her mobile phone, apartment keys, and her ID. I was uncomfortable and a bit in a panic. How long should I wait before I call the police? My brain said “long enough.” I made the call.
Out of my Comfort Zone: Meeting Our Discomfort to Support Collective Liberation
The sun was warm and bright the day I met Dragonfly. It happened fourteen years ago at a corporate picnic, back when I was an engineering manager with 15 years in the automotive industry. A dragonfly landed on me. It looked at me, cocking its head, flew away and back again, as if trying to get my attention. By the third time, it did. Something shifted that day. I’d been questioning, and this was my answer. It wasn’t long before I abandoned my corporate career and followed a path that led me to the Peruvian jungles, the pyramids in Egypt, new teachers and practices, and most importantly, to the temple of my own body. In so doing, I found my new work in the world as a sacred sexual healer.
Out of My Comfort Zone: Fall 2021, Angie Martell and Lama Nancy Burks
Crazy Wisdom Journal asked a number of leaders in southeastern Michigan’s conscious living community to reflect upon times in their lives that they’ve left their comfort zones to venture out in new ways. In the distant past or much more recently, we asked, what did you do, what inspired you, did it change you, inside or outside, big or little? Did you attend a new class, take an adventurous trip, go skydiving, stretch beyond a long entrenched boundary, start a new relationship or end an old one, take a leap, retire, join the Peace Corps, go on a night trek in the wilderness, or just do something way out of your ordinary?
Out of My Comfort Zone, Spring 2021, Susan Westhoff and David Hall
Crazy Wisdom Journal asked a number of leaders in southeastern Michigan’s conscious living community to reflect upon times in their lives that they’ve left their comfort zones to venture out in new ways. In the distant past or much more recently, we asked, what did you do, what inspired you, did it change you, inside or outside, big or little? Did you attend a new class, take an adventurous trip, go skydiving, stretch beyond a long entrenched boundary, start a new relationship or end an old one, take a leap, retire, join the Peace Corps, go on a night trek in the wilderness, or just do something way out of your ordinary?
Out of My Comfort Zone
Crazy Wisdom Journal asked a number of leaders in southeastern Michigan’s conscious living community to reflect upon times in their lives that they’ve left their comfort zones to venture out in new ways. In the distant past or much more recently, we asked, what did you do, what inspired you, did it change you, inside or outside, big or little? Did you attend a new class, take an adventurous trip, go skydiving, stretch beyond a long entrenched boundary, start a new relationship or end an old one, take a leap, retire, join the Peace Corps, go on a night trek in the wilderness, or just do something way out of your ordinary?
Out of My Comfort Zone
Crazy Wisdom Journal asked a number of leaders in southeastern Michigan’s conscious living community to reflect upon times in their lives that they’ve left their comfort zones to venture out in new ways. In the distant past or much more recently, we asked, what did you do, what inspired you, did it change you, inside or outside, big or little? Did you attend a new class, take an adventurous trip, go skydiving, stretch beyond a long entrenched boundary, start a new relationship or end an old one, take a leap, retire, join the Peace Corps, go on a night trek in the wilderness, or just do something way out of your ordinary?
