Learning to Be Comfortable in your own Skin
By Sara Jane
What do you consider “being comfortable” is?
Your answer will be different to everyone else’s.
Yes, even if you are in a long-term relationship or married, you will both answer from your own perspective and it will vary, even if only slightly, from your partner.
On the surface to the world everything may appear perfect, a loving relationship that is built on friendship.
There is a saying “everything in the garden is roses”.
I’ve been there, to all intents and purposes everything looked wonderful.
I had a man who loved me, we all but owned our house and had the money in the bank to pay it off.
We had 3 holidays every year, at least one abroad.
We were debt free and owned our cars.
How many of us would love to be in that position?
But I was so unhappy; he was a good man but I no longer loved him and didn’t know how to get out.
We lived in parallel comfort zones, his lined with rose petals and mine with rose thorns.
I was a fake purely because I didn’t know who I was.
I was scared to do or try so many things because I was afraid of what others would think.
So, I spent my life trying to please others with the hope that they would like me – even if only for a short while.
My wakeup call came in the form of a broken jaw (broken by a dentist extracting a wisdom tooth) followed by six months of pain and sleepless nights.
I no longer had the energy to constantly think about others, run our home, work full-time and study for an accountancy exam.
Then one day the penny dropped, it didn’t matter what others thought about me – if they even were, which they probably weren’t.
Providing I wasn’t deliberately hurting others, this was (and still is) my life to live, to experience, and my fear had been holding me back, seriously holding me back.
The day I learned to say No, was the day I stepped out of my comfort zone, I stopped being a fake and stepped into the unknown, to new possibilities; I started to find me.
I ended my marriage and moved; slowly a whole new world opened up for me.
Yes there were people who commented but I realised it was their stuff and I was able to let it go.
It was a few years later that I came across Neale Donald Walsch and the saying “Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone” and other such sayings and wisdom, that resonated so deeply with me.
For nearly 40 years I was a fake, a fraud, always trying to please others and never myself.
I cheated me.
Being comfortable prevents growth; not being true to yourself prevents growth.
Opening your heart and your mind to all the opportunities and possibilities that exist may have elements of discomfort but that is living, growing, experiencing and the discomfort in its own funny way is comforting.
Why?
Because I know I am Alive
Love, Peace & Light
Sara Jane
Copyright © Sara Jane 2016