I've always know that we as humans will search for the most comfortable easiest option without thinking about it.
It's part of our make up, our deep wildness to look for comfort because in essence comfort means safety. But over the years our understanding of what comfort is has changed and morphed into something that doesn't always really mean we are safe.
The stories we have grown up around, the ideals we have become accustomed too, do feel comfortable because that is what we are used to, and as we search for that comfort we unconsciously fall into the patterns that we have grown accustomed to live by.
Watching people over the last week or so there is nothing more clear to me that people are still searching for comfort, we essentially hate to be at un-ease. But its become also clear to me that we have lost our connection between comfort and safety
Watching people searching for loop holes to find comfort is effectively putting their safety at risk, but the overwhelming desire to feel comfort seems to trump that which is safe.
There is no judgement here, just a recognition of why people are doing it and what is happening. Something that yoga has taught me is that being comfortable isn't always whats best for me, its in the edges of the postures that I find the biggest shifts in my body and healing. If I was to stay within the comfort zone I know that I wouldn't have found this path.
So what can we learn from this?
That over the coming weeks we will not always be comfortable and that is ok, that being uncomfortable is sometimes better for us and ultimately will do us the most good. That when we find ourselves searching for comfort we are on;y following a deep inbuilt pattern that has been formed but isn't necessarily good. And that when we are feeling discomfort it doesn't mean that we are not safe.
Just like that yoga pose that you struggle with, or the gym routine where you're on the edge of your ability, these are the moments where we find our strongest self, these are NOT comfortable and there is always an easier way out, but we know that we won't get to where we want to be if we stay comfortable.
With the same mindset as we enter those postures or go and do a workout, we enter these next weeks and months ahead, with an understanding that this is not about being comfortable, about finding the easiest option, its about doing the thing that's best for us, that in the long run we will be grateful for, even if in the short term it feels horrid.
And how do we get through it, just like we do in the yoga pose, or the long run, one breath at a time, one step at a time. Noticing our inner world, reminding ourselves of what is important right now, and that's our safety, not our comfort and drawing on the strength of all those times you've found yourself wanting to exit a posture earlier than you did, or make that run shorter than you'd planned. Draw from those experiences and don't fall into the trap of looking for the easiest way.
