Monday Mindfulness Minute: Why is it called a comfort zone if it's so uncomfortable?

My comfort zone is never as comfortable as my mind leads me to believe. Our minds crave consistency and tell us to chase it, but once we "get it," everything becomes too stable and life becomes cramped and boring. So which is it? Does stability or change bring the most comfort? To which the mind would answer, "Oh, I love change, as long as I'm the one deciding what is changing and how fast."

It's as if we want to live life as a snake that controls when it molts. But we know that's not the case. Nature decides that. Just like nature decides when it's time for us to change and let go of things that are no longer serving us.

Is it easy to grow and change? Absolutely not. Is it necessary to change? Absolutely.

This rabbi does an excellent job of explaining our predicament regarding change with his description of how lobsters grow and change and how they likely wouldn't change if they were sedated in our society.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/446a6c_7496a8059dad4fd8bcec176a50ef186b/240p/mp4/file.mp4

"Right before you elevate to your next level, there's always a moment where everything that no longer aligns starts to crumble. If things are falling apart, trust that it's making space for more light to enter. Let it happen." - Unknown

Monday Mindfulness Minute: You Can't Get it Because You Already Are it

Have you heard the story of the Musk Deer?

The deer catches a scent of something one morning early in its life and becomes obsessed with finding it. Convinced that finding this scent will fulfill its life mission, it spends each day frantically searching the valleys, mountaintops, and every corner in between, seeming always to be close but never quite reaching it. Exhausted from the search, it eventually finds itself on its deathbed. Resting for the first time, the deer pauses and, in the stillness, notices that somehow the scent remains beyond the valleys and mountains and corners. You guessed it. The scent it was chasing outside was actually coming from its own pores. It had what it was searching for.

I have been this deer many times in my life, frantically searching for the thing outside (the career/partner/vacation/friendship) that would finally bring me contentment. But collecting and grasping these externals never seemed to be enough. It's almost as if we have been convinced that these outside things are the last piece of the puzzle that will complete us.

But it turns out that we are the last piece of the puzzle. Us. Experiencing life. You see, the purpose of life isn't trying to find something outside. The purpose of life is the experience of life inside. Once we live this, the things outside will become more enjoyable because we won't be as attached to them, won't be as afraid that they keep leaving us or changing.

Monday mindfulness Minute: "Has It ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?"

Five years ago, I would have been insulted if you had asked me this question or even insinuated that I could be wrong about anything. The double whammy of growing up as an only child and being Valedictorian in high school firmly lodged the belief that I was always right deep into my psyche. As it turns out, the "skill" of memorizing and regurgitating information is far from the insanity of trying to predict the future, which is what the mind seems most preoccupied with these days.

The more I watch, the more I see that my mind is consistently and predictably wrong about the weather, what others will do, why they do what they do, whether the plan is going to work out, how long traffic is going to take, how people are going to react, whether there will be rotissere chickens left at the grocery story, whether it's going to rain 4 and a half weeks from now when I'm on vacation, why that person did what they did 3 years ago, where I would be now if I had done something different 2 years ago, how a friendship will turn out, whether the sore throat will turn out to be the first signs of a debilitating disease, and on and on and on and on.

To be fair to the mind, it's doing the best with what it has, which is a limited set of data comprised of our past experiences. It then takes this data, which is statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of everything that is happening everywhere, and comes up with an "educated" guess about what's going to happen next. The issue is not that the mind thinks, as this abstract thinking serves as the foundation for some of our greatest human discoveries, but that we take these guesses and turn them into convictions about ourselves, our lives, and (most dangerously) others. We become convicts trapped inside the limited confines of our minds when we automatically believe the first thing that comes to mind.

It turns out that “Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?” is not an insult but a lifeline. Asking ourselves this question, repeatedly and especially when we are convinced we are right, might be the leverage we need to crack the prison of our mind open to find our freedom beyond the endless thoughts of assumption that leave us closed to learning anything new.

I think the boy in "The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse" is onto something when he asks, "Is there a school of unlearning?" The classroom of unlearning is in session each day. If we dare to show up, we will learn to pause for a second to consider that we don't know and to embrace curiosity over certainty, asking over telling, and love over judgement.