The Good News about the Comfort Zone

The good news about the comfort zone is that all the energy that makes up the comfort zone is yours.

Fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger are, of course, emotions. Emotion is energy in motion. We take our energy and put it in motion. Sometimes it's joy, sometimes it's sorrow; sometimes it's guilt, sometimes it's pride; sometimes it's pain, sometimes it's pleasure — whatever the emotion, the energy that's in motion is what we put in motion.

People often want to "get rid of" a "negative" emotion — fear, say, or unworthiness — before attempting something new. That's the same thing as saying, "I want to get rid of some of my energy."

As we tend to get what we want, a portion of our energy is taken from us. We may not feel as much fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings or anger — but we don't have much energy, either. "I'd sure like some more energy," we say, and we get it — often in the form of fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger. Then we ask for those to go away, and the cycle continues.

Fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger are, in fact, tools. Tools are neutral — they can be used either for us, or against us. A knife can be used to heal or to hurt. A hammer can be used to build or to destroy. It is not the tool itself, but the way the tool is used that determines its benefit or detriment.

The difficulty lies in a fundamental misperception of the so-called "limiting" emotions. The limitation is not in the emotions themselves, but in the way we've been taught to perceive these emotions. We've been programmed with certain attitudes about certain feelings, and in the attitudes lie the limitations, not in the feelings.

In a sense, we play isometrics with our feelings and our attitudes. A certain feeling arises. An attitude says we shouldn't have that feeling, and pushes it down. It's like arm wrestling with ourselves — we can expend a lot of energy and work diligently, but not much is accomplished. When we see how little gets done, we wonder (A) why so little was accomplished ("I tried so hard"), (B) why we're so tired, or (C) both.

The good news is that both the energy pushing up and the energy pushing down is our energy. Imagine moving toward a goal and not just removing the inner resistance to achieving that goal, but adding all the energy that was part of the resistance to the forward motion of achievement. Whew!

Imagine if all the energy of fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger were available to help us achieve anything we wanted.

Well, they are.

Using fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger as allies in the journey toward our dreams is not difficult. It is a matter of understanding their true use and function — and remembering that we now know their true use and function. (The habit of treating them as "the enemies" to be "gotten rid of can be strong.)

It's as though someone hung a large rock around our neck. "Oh, how heavy," we'd complain. Later we were told the rock was really a diamond in the rough. "Oh! How heavy!" we'd exclaim.

Fear, guilt, unworthiness, hurt feelings and anger are diamonds in the rough. They're valuable now, and with a little cutting and polishing, they become priceless.

The next few chapters reveal these gems for what they are, and the rest of this book discusses various cutting and polishing techniques.

And neither shall we learn to war with ourselves any more.

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