What lays beyond? Breaking Free From My Comfort Zone

If you arrived on a small, distant planet populated by more advanced humanoid type beings it may well feel like where I am now, namely the "Yoga Barn"centre in Bali. The majority of inhabitants are young, brown, attractive, intelligent -somehow ethereal and above all flexible.

Investigating the layout of the centre on the evening of arrival I was immediately terrified by the prospect of interacting with my fellow students over the coming month of moderately intense yoga practice.

As ever I am coming up against my ego. I am a 60 year old novice yoga practitioner who's body (after a lifetime cramped into the confines of a series of airliner flight decks ) is all but devoid of flexibility. My ego is terrified of making an utter fool of itself in front of 80 supremely fit, flexible attractive mid-twenties women from around the globe. I am way out of my comfort zone and not liking it.

We have an almost innate tendency to burrow into a place in life which feels comfortable and secure and then to dig deeper and deeper to try and strengthen the feeling. I notice how many older people turn into grim parodies of their younger selves. Deep set in way and thought they twist any new piece of information or situation to reinforce an often narrow and bigoted World view.

Eastern philosophy speaks much of habitual pattern. A behavior carried out only a few times, for example, is like a line drawn in sand. It has virtually no permanence -on a breezy day the line will be filled within minutes and forgotten. Thoughts and habits repeated over a lifetime, on the other hand, are as a deep groove chiseled in granite, with supreme effort it could removed but in all likelihood that trench will be there for the rest of time.

In fact the ,"Yoga Barn Experience ", one week in has not been as painful as expected. There are actually a number of older people here and there are even some practitioners who are less competent than myself - added to which it's not a competition, nobody is watching you anyway. 

​Poking your head out of your comfort zone can be a disturbing and depressing experience but to do so is almost certainly a wise move.










Author: James (Guest writer)
Images- courtesy of google, "breaking free".