20. What are the things that would take you out of your comfort zone?

Recently, I was given a questionnaire to fill out and one of the questions was: What are the things that would take you out of your comfort zone? This was a difficult one for me to answer – two reasons. One being, I’m not really sure what would take me (or take to get me) out of my comfort zone, and secondly – more importantly, I knew the person reading it would hold me to it, challenge me in some way I might be uncomfortable with. So, I wrote I’m already living outside of my comfort zone, blah, blah, blah. But, am I? No. Not really.
Yoga on the mat is a metaphor, a practice for how we want live off the mat. So this is how it goes: no, today I won’t go into Laghu Vajrasana, my shoulders aren’t open enough; no, I can’t do a headstand without the wall; no, I don’t have enough power in my back leg for Visvamitrasana, and the list goes on and on – We’ve all been in those situations before, the feeling that we just don’t have it in us, yet. This is not to say never, that we’re not determined to get there eventually. And it’s not about pushing yourself or giving 110% of your effort (B.T.W. which is 10% too much) or to power through it.
Instead, what if it’s about expanding our boundaries a bit, maybe to us giving 90% feels like 100% because we’ve been in it so long that it becomes our comfort zone?
If you can’t grow, expand, test, your boundaries with something or someone you love, where it’s safe to explore, how are you ever going to be able to tap into that inner source for growth, expansion, strength when you’re in a compromised experience, when you need to be able to see all the possibilities?
Yoga is your lab and the joint is your playground, so get playful on your mat, maybe this is the month you come up into handstand at the wall, or in the center of the room. Maybe this is the month you… who knows? The possibilities are all there, inside you, you just have to know they’re there, trust in it.
Also, as my 12 year old told me today, ‘If you work out of your comfort zone so often it eventually becomes your comfort zone.’ Ahh, out of the mouths of babes.