We feel safe, when we are not threatened, but what’s fascinating to me is that we can feel threatened in the absence of an existing threat.
For example, if we feel scarcity, incompetence, lack of clarity, loss of control, incongruence, resistance, stagnation, or the presence of a consequence, we may no longer feel safe; and what’s the place that we know can give us our safety back? The comfort zone, and here’s why…
Comfort distracts us and temporarily isolates us from the consequences that await us beyond it.
It’s just a sedative, but an extremely effective one. It’s so effective that many of us use it so frequently, that it ends up becoming a destination instead of a vehicle to escape the pain of the journey.
We all have different ways of accessing it, but the way it distracts us is not my main concern here. The real problem of comfort lies in the way it shapes our relationship with the unknown.
Here’s what I mean, comfort is the barrier that separates us from the unknown. Whenever we are separated from something, it could mean deprivation or protection, but regardless of the reason for the separation, the unfolding detachment shapes our relationship with what we have been detached from.
In this case, we’re either being deprived of the unknown, or protected from it. However, the illusion of safety, that comfort provides, suggests to the unconscious mind that what we are separated from is a threat.
In other words, we have learned to perceive comfort as something that can protect us from the unknown, and whatever we need protection from will be perceived as an enemy, which is how comfort can create a false sense of safety within us.
That is one of the biggest lies that we were ever told.
-Sam Qureshi
