Weight Weight Just Love Me – Comfort – Day 56
I found my way to comfort and ease by selling the goat.
Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT
In teaching yoga, I’ve learned to find true comfort takes being pushed to an edge. There is a story we learned in yoga teacher training about a man who lived in a small shack with his wife and six small children. He went to talk with the priest in his village about the chaos that was in his home and what he could do about it. He was counseled to get a goat and have it live inside the home with them. Several weeks go by with the goat in the home and he cannot figure out how in the world was this noisy, smelly goat living with them supposed to make their life any easier. In a fit of absolute frustration, he sells the goat. With the goat gone, the house became a haven of comfort for the whole family.
I’ve pondered this story many times when things seem absolutely chaotic in my life. How can I find my way back to comfort and ease from an edge? Often I don’t even know I’m on an edge – except that my life feels anything but comfortable and easy. That is the tell of a goat somewhere in my existence that needs to go.
Being comfortable as a normal state of being – well that gets rather boring. I like being pushed to my edges. How am I supposed to extend the envelope of what is possible for me unless I’m willing to go out there? But living “out there” is not where I want to be all the time. Spending more time doing and teaching yoga, has me realizing it is helpful for me to occasionally go to an edge, but for the most part, I now prefer coming back to a place of comfort and ease. What has been interesting is loving myself more – that place of comfort and ease is easier to find. And being easier to find, helps me go to a new edge more readily. That is to take more chances, being more confident I can find my way back “home” to my stable base of an ever loving self. This extends to the work projects I’m willing to pursue, to the clarity in which I can move the “goats” out of my life, to the loving guidance I can hear from others I may have ignored before as it pushed on my edges. Comfort is my new home – from which I can soar.
Kate’s comment: Our comfort zone is a relative place. If the boundaries were never pushed, wouldn’t the comfort zone be the size of a postage stamp? I think that by attempting to make yourself uncomfortable (thus pushing to your edges), you’re actually helping expand your comfort zone – ensuring that regardless of the situation, you’ll be comfortable. Doesn’t that sound like nirvana?
