The “Uncomfortable” Comfort Zone: That Painful Familiarity

Imagine for a second that you were traveling on a bus heading to some far away destination - A journey of a lifetime. The journey is going to be long, with some bumps and you’re going to be sitting in one place for a couple hours. Sitting next to you is a very attractive woman with headphones on, passing the time listening to something probably a hundred times better than the noisy chug of the engine, and the meaningless chatter of the other passengers.

You can’t help but notice how beautiful she is, like a vineyard in the summer with long dark hair, intricately braided and wearing a taffy-pink tracksuit with matching colored nails. For some reason, every time you try opening your mouth to talk to her, your heart gets stuck in your throat and you feel like a fish drowning in the open air. After a minute or so, you concede defeat and settle for examining the back of the aged and torn polyester seat directly in front of you instead.

Only a few minutes pass by when suddenly you feel something heavy fall onto your shoulder. You look over at the most glorious sight you’d seen in your entire life. That beautiful woman who you had almost forgotten about, had fallen asleep with her head on your shoulder. Her headphones were still on and her hair fell deliberately over her eyes. You remain completely still, afraid to move because you didn’t want to wake her and also because you secretly didn’t want that beautiful moment to end too quickly.

Not even five minutes into this moment, you feel your arm begin to numb. You ignore it. After ten minutes, you start feeling a painful tingling in your fingers. At this point you are really wishing that you could shift positions because you’re feeling increasing discomfort, but no. You decide to endure. Let her sleep a little longer.

Fifteen minutes in, you’re in clear agony because you have not moved a muscle since. Your body is screaming at you for relief but despite knowing that you could do something about it anytime you want, you decide to remain where you are because you like the feeling. You don’t know when you might experience something like this again. You think that maybe if you try to ignore the pain it might stop.

Twenty minutes in, you realized that the situation wasn’t as sweet as it initially seemed. You can’t take it anymore and your body jerks upward in a blatant “get off me” manner. As her head is flung back, you immediately regret doing it even though your entire body is throbbing painfully. Maybe it would have been better to hang on a little while longer.

If you really think about it, this bus ride mirrors our journey through life and relationships.

Some of us are in relationships where we’re being mistreated, disrespected and even abused, but despite the lack of love, decency and respect, we choose to stay. Despite our gut instinct telling us to run, we choose to stay. Despite knowing that we can and should leave, we choose to stay. Even if we managed to eventually leave, we end up gravitating toward the same toxic types, and then again, and again, and then wash, rinse and repeat. This is the uncomfortable comfort zone.

I can already hear you thinking, “Why the hell don’t they just leave”? Believe me, it’s a very valid question. I’ve been asking myself the same question for years. You know, it’s very curious, this urge that we have of trying to achieve the perfect outcome from a less than suboptimal situation. We believe on some level that we could control the uncontrollable even in situations that don’t even qualify as futile. We keep going.

We remain in these toxic relationships because it is literally all that we know. We feel more comfortable settling into roles that we are familiar with and we rationalize that it wouldn’t make sense going a different way. It is one of the reasons why we can’t - no, refuse to let go. It is because change scares us. Growth scares us. We convince ourselves that we can and should tolerate the mistreatment, because walking into the unknown would be a lot more terrifying, so we remain in our uncomfortable comfort zone. It’s like, the devil you know is better than the one you don’t right? To be honest, I’m not so sure about that.

Maybe we opt to stick around because we labor under the delusion that we are not deserving of basic love, decency and respect. We punish ourselves for not living up to the unreasonable expectations of others and we resign ourselves to the belief that even if we were to leave, no one would want anything to do with someone so damaged anyway.

It is astounding the amount of effort we put into selling ourselves short because it gives us the perfect excuse not to change our unhealthy pattern of behavior. We take pride in the faulty logic, that we don’t have any options and that we are stuck in a life that we don’t want to live, stuck in a prison that we cannot escape. It is convenient I guess, but it is not the reality, not by any stretch of the imagination.

There is no reason to think that keeping our heads on the chopping block in some heroic fashion would somehow atone for our perceived faults, that it would make our crookeds straight. Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing noble or poetic about suffering stupidly.

I know that in some strange way, mistreatment and indifference makes you feel safe. Not because it’s good, no. Not because you like it. It’s because it is familiar, like an old friend. You’re used to it. Despite the pain and discomfort it brings you, it’s the place you call home. I can understand that. But you know something? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Navigating the unknown is frightening, but I think the more you get to know yourself, the more comfortable you would feel in making decisions that would benefit you in the long run, where growth and fostering more healthy relationships would be your new home.

You don’t have to stay in one place and suffer agonizing pain and discomfort. You can move into a new and better position.

Your thoughts?