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Comfort Zone Stretchies

How Far is Too Far

By Christine HollermannPublished 2 years ago 6 min read
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Comfort Zone Stretchies
Photo by Timothy Meinberg on Unsplash

One of my absolute favorite things about having indoor cats is that collectively we share the traits of being homebodies. In fairness, mine is my choice, and theirs is by virtue of being my pets, but all the same we are home more often than not.

One of my cats I adopted as a kitten and as always been raised as an indoor cat homebody and so, even when presented with the opportunity to go out for a walk with me, once set outside the threshold of my apartment. Protested. Loudly. Incessantly. Until I moved her two feet on the other side of the threshold back into the safety and comfort of home at which point she went back to her daily activities of playing, scratching furniture, staring out the window and napping. My other cat, my first cat, is older and did not come into my life until he was about five years old. He had been an indoor/outdoor cat. Since being with me he has been an indoor cat who occasionally goes on walks on a leash outside, provided there are no dogs around. My favorite thing about this is when we go on these adventurous outings he opts to slink around the exterior of the apartment building, ducking under rain gutter spouts, slink around electric boxes, circle satellite dishes, and periodically stop and stare into the great unknown, of the parking lot. At this juncture in our lives he has no desire to go further then that.

Both of these sweet fur babies illustrates the same truth at two different points; comfort zone limits. For Nita (raised from kittenhood) that limit is approximately the threshold of the apartment and too far is two feet outside the threshold. For Clarence (older cat) his is outside the building, but not on the other side of the parking lot or even onto the grass. I like this because thinking of it through the observations of my cats let me realize something about myself and my own comfort zone. Which is that I'm much more of a Nita and need smaller comfort zone stretchies when I'm ready for them.

If you have read some of my recent posts you'll know I recently got out of a long term relationship that was emotionally abusive. If you don't follow me, that's cool too, because I just recapped the critical information. Initially, and in a healthy manner, my immediate experience after that experience is one of learning and healing, re calibrating to life alone again. I've been trusting the process even when I don't understand it and it has lead me to some incredibly beautiful places of new friendships, new passions and new hobbies. Now it's leading me someplace even more stunning, outside of my comfort zone.

For a long time, like, as long as I can remember really I've been obsessed with the idea of romantic relationships. I love the idea of love, bordered on obsession for a long time. So, when I felt I had found my love I was over the moon grateful. Eventually that resulted in really unhealthy and abusive dynamics where I stopped articulating or expecting my emotional needs to be met all the time or, at the end, ever. It also has allowed me to realize some humbling truths about myself. Despite my self-proclaimed enthusiasts of true love and partnership I actually have a huge fear of intimacy and early on in my last relationship he told me he was not interested in marriage, in children, in living together, and for a very long time would not acknowledge what we had as a relationship at all. Classic fuck boy situationship status. The interesting thing is while when I tried to leave he would engage in emotionally abusive tactics to re-engage me in the relationship, I opted to stay, especially early on, despite his clearly stating his need would not and could not match my own. Why?

Well, dear readers, because psychologically speaking the nature of our relationship put me at an ideal place to never have to actually address my intimacy issues. Being in a situationship with an emotionally unavailable man allowed me to show to myself and the world I was trying while also allowing me to never have to face the root of fear of close relationships outside of my family, which stems from not trusting or feeling safe in any relationships, platonic or otherwise. Of course at the time I didn't realize that's what I was doing because what fun would that be. Truthfully I couldn't have understood that at the time anyway I had to learn it in my own time.

So now in the aftermath of this relationship I find myself truly desiring actual romantic intimacy again, but with more self-awareness than I had before. Which means. I can see now how my desire to jump into the closest non familial relationship we create as humans, romantic partnerships, when I hadn't really even made a friend on my own since 2008. What this means in practice is educating myself about how healthy relationships unfold and evolve, very casually practicing these skills online in the garbage fire that is online dating, and standing at the metaphorical threshold of my apartment, taking steps inch by inch, to grow in my tolerance of emotional closeness on my end goal of a happy fulfilling emotionally intimate relationships of all types.

In practice this would look like almost nothing to the observer. Following the break up I started going to public places that held no expectation of talking. Places like the library. This allowed me to practice being near people I don't know and deal with the uncertainty of if social interaction would be required. Is that a far place from a committed relationship? Yep. Is it the first step for my growth? Yep! Today was another milestone. I sat at a table near another patron. We aren't talking but it was a pretty big deal for me as my default is to avoid people.

Other significant milestones have been going on a date, seeing red flags, and responding to them, going to something I was interested but knew no one at, and making new friendships without oversharing as a way to either fall into familiar and unhealthy codependent behaviors OR to scare them off and successfully avoid intimacy all together.

All of this to say, whatever your end goal is; write a book, marriage, start a company -- odds are your comfort zone is probably waaaaaaaaay back at the starting line, or, even, inside your comfort zone just managing the anxiety that comes up when you think about taking steps. That's okay! Our growth isn't achieved by launching ourselves into level 52 when we're at the tutorial stage of a game, it's beginning, wherever we are, and honoring our achievements, especially the little ones, that look like nothing to someone else, but are important steps in the right direction for ourselves. <3

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About the Creator

Christine Hollermann

Getting back into writing after a couple years break. Going to start my first book this year. Tips appreciated but never expected.

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