I was told as a baby I took my time getting to grips with sitting up without a steadying hand to stop me tipping backwards to face the blank and uninteresting ceiling, somewhere about 18 months old I couldn’t put it off any longer and delighted my family by standing unaided and with my first wobbly steps. Since then I’ve gone from strength to strength, and I can pretty much say I am sublimely comfortable with sitting, standing and moving in a forward direction most of the time; rarely do I give it a second thought these days. But equally rarely do I ever walk backwards. Now please don’t try this at home, I have, and there are far too many obstacles in the modern home to do this without coming a cropper. Walking backwards is out of my comfort zone, it gives me problems I could do without. Going forwards in reverse means I can’t see what I’m approaching for a start, and that cranks up anxiety like nothing else. Reversing, I have found, triggers endlessly craning my neck left and right (in a similar fashion to owl but without the luxury of 14 vertebrae in my neck area.) All the while, I am distracted from the real pain in the neck by my paying acute attention to as much of my peripheral vision behind me as possible. Of course, I am hoping to catch a glimpse of anything, high or low, that might clump me on the head or trip me up and land me on my bottom. My legs feel funny, a little uncontrollable, wilful, rebellious even. When did that happen; that legs had a mind of their own and needed such careful controlling? My centre of gravity is shifting in ways I’m not used to, my arms have risen and adopted an’ elbows out’ pose that saw back and forth in response to the leg action. This is exhausting!
But when I ask myself when did I last walk from A to B with senses firing at all cylinders and with an anticipation that something extraordinary might be about to happen at any and each scary faltering step? Pretty much never that I can remember, at a guess, it was around those early toddling days, but those memories are buried deep below lots of other stuff now.
Research out from Roehampton suggests we remember things better when we have spent time walking backwards. Given the sheer aliveness of our senses and the state of high alert our brains engage while walking backwards is it really any wonder? Does this phenomenon give a tantalising glimpse of how we can get brain and body expansive aliveness back in our lives? But do we really have to take the drastic step literally of walking backwards to engage the brain and physical body this way?
I don’t think we do need to walk backwards or skydive off The Shard to offset our internal programming that leads us to wear the same grove in our favourite sofa, drink the same tea, eat the same rotating menu of lunches and always lay our head on the same pillow at night to ensure we are well and truly safe in our comfort zones. Below I’ll give some suggestions to get you started, but first I want you to consider why your work as a counsellor might make you more susceptible to staying in your comfort zone.
We Counsellors, being human of course, not only instinctively create comfort zones for ourselves, we consciously strive to create a comfort zone for our clients too in the therapy room. We encourage a set time and day knowing this facilitates a rhythm or habit to the counselling process. On an environmental level, we often keep the venue the same, the room unchanged, we tend not to move the chairs around or introduce regularly changing eye-catching pictures on the walls. We keep a sameness in the room that underpins the continuity of the client’s process. But of course it does something for us too, we can be a little protective of ‘our chair’ in the room, and new clients might be gently steered to the chair designated for them, It’s not a lesser chair, lower or less comfortable, but it’s their chair, and ours is ours, our little comfort spot in the room.
Further, when we work, we create a comfort zone with ourselves, our being, the person we are, and we consistently strive to be ourselves when we are with our clients. How hard we have worked, and still do as a work in progress, to be as congruent as we are, right? Knowing ourselves and solidifying the essence of who we are, so pretty much clients will be meeting with the unadulterated us, the us that puts our highs or lows away and walks in our clients’ shoes session after session, without bringing our kids, spouse, or the dog along for the walk too. Clients sometimes express arrival to the comfort zone you have created by releasing a sigh as they sit down, listen out for it, maybe it’s a little non-verbal clue on how they feel about the space you have created, even if the work to follow gets uncomfortable for them. All this is for the good – but can it encourage us to be a bit too routine in our personal time.
Anyways, enough chit chat lets get down to some practical suggestions.
Planning your adventures:
Make an intention to shake up your routines a bit, start with baby steps. Let’s not leap from comfort zone to ‘The Zone of Terror’ too quickly that will send you heading straight back to that grove on the sofa. Think more about shuffling reasonably regularly into the not quite so comfy zone initially. Eventually, you may start to really break out of the norm and who knows where that might lead both personally and professionally. The hobbies you may discover or the different work you may take on, the fresh, the new, the challenging.
Make a chapter in your notebook to record what you are doing – it probably won’t be interesting reading in the beginning but who knows what that chapter may reveal as time goes on and your lust for adventures grows.
Time Switch:
- Get up 30 minutes earlier on alternate days and do something different like have your morning coffee in the garden, learn a challenging yoga pose, play keepie-uppie with a softball, learn a poem. There are many things we can do with 30 minutes that will stimulate the mind and body.
- End your day with a stop off at an interesting or picturesque location, just 10 or 15 minutes breaks up the routine repetitiveness of the drive.
- Regularly drive different routes to work.
- Try a different radio station on your journeys.
Environmental Disturbance:
Changing your surrounding can jar a little, but comfort is what we are avoiding right. So how about some of these suggestions.
- Regularly move around the prints and photos in your home, you might find you haven’t noticed them properly for years.
- Swop sides of the bed – unless of course, that’s a step too far for your partner or the family pet.
- Have a move around of your furniture at home – when I was younger, I used to move the furniture around a lot, but gradually the furniture seemed to take root where it is. Time for a change.
Senses Stir-up:
Ah the senses, smell, taste, touch, feel and sound. Can you allow yourself the sensation of rain, salty wind in your hair and goosebumps without reaching immediately for your hat, coat and umbrella? Try these ideas;
- Get out in nature in all its glory the ultimate sensory overload – go forest bathing or just stand in the garden watching the stars.
- Try out new recipes with unusual ingredients, be guided by smell touch and taste as well as the recipe itself.
- Every now and again, pick something familiar up, close your eyes and use your sense of touch to really appreciate this added dimension to familiar objects.
- Get loud with some music every once in a while.
So there are some basic ideas to get you started – you may find some of those are all you need to shake up your routines and keep you feeling refreshed – perhaps you’ll get hooked and end up doing something completely fearless. Whatever you do enjoy the journey.
I hope this week’s contribution adds in a small way to the wealth of good advise and fellowship found amongst us in this uniquely special occupation. Please make a comment if you have a favourite way to step out of your comfort zone – I would love to hear from you. If you give me a thumbs up that would be great too.