When I was at university, I lived in several student residences. One of them, for women only, was run by an older couple, between sixty and seventy, who initially seemed perfectly ordinary. The woman, whom we will call Doña Luisa, was very sweet to all the girls. The man, whom we will call Don Luis, was a retired lawyer who seemed a little serious but quite polite. At least, that was my first impression.
A week after I arrived, I ran into one of the other girls as I was leaving for university. Almost under her breath, she asked whether I had heard someone crying in the early hours of the morning. I came home from training so tired that I could barely hear my alarm in the mornings, but her remark stayed with me, and a couple of nights later I paid closer attention.
In fact, that night I did not need to listen very carefully. Doña Luisa had agreed with one of the girls that she could come home a little later and that she would open the door for her without Don Luis finding out. We had very strict hours for coming and going. That night, as Doña Luisa returned to her room after opening the door for the girl at midnight, Don Luis’s fist was waiting for her without mercy. A couple of screams, followed by crying and sobbing, brought the one-sided dispute to an end.
The next morning, when I went to the kitchen for breakfast, I found Doña Luisa with the wrinkled skin of her face turned purple. I asked her, “Doña Luisa, why do you let Don Luis mistreat you?” She replied, “My dear, what am I going to do? At this age, what can I do now? He has always been like this. At least I have everything I need, and I only have to put up with these things ‘once in a while.’ Otherwise, he is good to me.” After that answer, I could find nothing more to say.
Doña Luisa had made a choice long before I came into her life. Long ago, she had decided that her comfort zone was more important than her safe zone. Doña Luisa lacks nothing; she has everything, but she does not have herself.
Your comfort zone is not necessarily the place where you are happy. Generally, your comfort zone is where you believe you have everything you need, regardless of the abuse, mistreatment, and humiliation you have to endure. It is the place where phrases such as “at least I have…,” “at least he…,” and “at least she…” live.
But how do we distinguish the comfort zone from the safe zone? The safe zone is where you feel confident in yourself, in who you are, in what you have achieved. That is why I call it the Safe Zone. It is the place where you can be yourself without prejudice or insecurities; where you feel happy with yourself and with others, where you have peace, where you feel more creative. It holds everything that excites you, that makes your heart beat faster, where you know that even if this state lasts only a few seconds, the feeling stays with you permanently. That is your safe zone, where you encounter the true power with which you were created.
Can your safe zone coincide with your comfort zone? Of course, but not always. Only you can tell where one ends and the other begins, or whether they overlap.
Make use of the moments you have to yourself—in the shower, out running, walking the dog, before going to sleep… you do not need to sit in the lotus position to meditate—and remember when you have felt you were in your safe zone. Re-create that feeling; if you cannot remember it, create it. Use your imagination and seek your safe zone: that is what we call leaving your comfort zone. If your safe zone is outside your comfort zone, go after it. You have no idea what you will feel when you are there. And if you do not yet know where it is, create it with all the strength of your heart. There you will reconnect with that creative, immeasurable being you seem to have forgotten.
“The comfort zone is the great enemy of creativity; moving beyond it requires intuition, which in turn shapes new perspectives and overcomes fears.”
Dan Stevens