Breaking the habit…

When does your comfort zone stop helping?

We learn early in life pathways of safety, ways to try to feel better, stories to try and make sense of it all.

And as we move through life many of those patterns take a stronger hold, sometimes defining who we think we are, other times trapping us in what feels like never-ending cycles.

As I share with you many of the patterns I’ve got caught in, I hope it’s helping you reflect a bit on some of yours.

Every time we lean into that old pattern, choosing the familiar way to try to get our needs met or falling into that coping strategy, we just keep forming a deeper path down the same road.

I get really curious about watching peoples emotional reactions and responses on those roads; I get even more curious about my own.

The other night, I found myself back in a similar feeling, helpless in response to someone else’s actions and frustrated that I couldn’t change the way I felt.

I tried expressing the emotion to move it out of my body, but it lingered and pretty much cycled, and I realized that expressing it might feel good in the moment and helped me understand the deeper feeling, but it didn’t really move me off the path, it just kept forging a stronger one.

This got me extra curious. It reminded me of something my mentor asked me last week, “Why didn’t you feel you could just do what you needed?”

My comfort zone has been to wallow in the emotion, to stay there, because it’s what’s easiest and “safe”, because I don’t disrupt anyone else.

The thing I’ve learned over the years, that got me stuck in this pattern of emotional looping, is that when I have tried to express how I was feeling when I was deeply in it, I’ve triggered the other person, which caused more rupture in the relationship than the repair I needed. So instead I’d hide my emotions, swallowing them.

But then they often fester inside and come out when I didn’t want them to.

It’s taken some time, but I’ve learned that it’s important to make space for the way I feel first, so I’m not projecting my emotions, but still honouring them. They hold important information.

But now I have a new piece of information.

When I meet myself there, I can listen and comfort, but I need to then invite myself to choose a different path out of hiding, the path I actually need… empowering myself to ask for what I needed.

We all find our mechanisms of safety. Some fight back, others hide, some freeze, while others discount their own needs and take care of everyone else.

What is your pattern of meeting your emotions?
Do express them, run from them, numb from them, or project them?
Are you honouring them, then choosing for them?

Yesterday I heard a young woman crying and yelling at her, I assume, boyfriend. At first I was surprised, I thought it was a child crying, but when I saw it was a young woman I paused. After a flash of judgment and appall, I realized that it’s likely no one ever showed her how to meet her emotions to discover what she needed rather than projecting them onto someone else.

Her ‘boyfriend’ was super calm though, speaking gently to her, perhaps familiar with her emotional pattern, but I saw a great teacher for her in that relationship, someone that could meet her where she was, to in time help her find her way through.

Don’t we all need that?

Someone to hold the space, listen, and support us as we move out of the emotional habit to find our way into a new way of being, a new zone of comfort.

I’m grateful for the teachers, guides, friends, and family that have and continue to witness me and help me develop my self-awareness, because the more I come to know my emotional patterns, the more I’m able to shift my approach in navigating them.

Our relationships are there to mirror to us and help us learn and grow, but as we do, the relationship we have with ourselves is the one that will last a lifetime, so developing it as well, is essential.

This is the power of compassionate self-awareness. When we can learn to be our own listener, support, and encouraging voice, we can break our old patterns of that no longer help, and find new paths that actually do make a difference in how we feel.

Finding a new zone of comfort that actually works today.

This is the steady ground of my work. I want to help you learn to meet yourself where you are, discover what needs to shift, and find an empowering pathway forward.

I’m here to guide you toward self-empowerment with compassion and curiosity, so you can step forward in the ways that feel authentic and meaningful.

Need someone to listen and guide you through those old patterns? Come sit with me and let’s explore the patterns you’re ready to break.

It’s time to feel free! 💞

Brenda