Today we will explore how the brain has evolved to create 2 different comfort zones — one helpful, one limiting— and some practices for eliminating the restrictive one. We hope this supports you in unlocking your highest potential. 

Scenario 1: No Fear

Imagine it’s the Jurassic period: you’re in the jungle, dinosaurs and pterodactyls are flying around...

🦖 You turn the corner and see a T-Rex: It’s 100 feet tall, and its teeth are the size of your head.

🚶‍♂️ You notice the T-Rex, but you keep strutting along — care free.

👺 The T-Rex gets angry, put its head in your face, and lets out a roar that shakes the ground.

🚶‍♂️ But you just keep cruising along your jungle walk, as if you did not even notice the dinosaur.

😵 The dinosaur gets angry at your lack of acknowledgment, bites your head, and eats you whole. Game over.

Now, let’s explore a different scenario…

Scenario 2: Helpful Fear

💭 Now imagine it's the post-Jurassic period, and you have an amygdala.

🧠 The amygdala is the part of our brain that helps us feel fear.

🦖 So now when you see the T-Rex, you stop in your tracks. Your eyes widen. Your heart drops. You start to tremble.

🏃‍♂️ The dinosaur notices you, but this time you snap into action.

⚡ Your focus turns to an escape path on your left, and you sprint down that path at lightning speed.

🐅 The dinosaur follows behind you, but you take quick lefts, quick rights, and successfully make the escape.

😮‍💨 You breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that you survived another day.

2023: Excess Fear

🚶‍♂️In scenario 1, you have no fear — no amygdala — so you walk right into the dinosaur’s lap.

🏃‍♂️ In scenario 2, you have the amygdala — you feel fear, run from the dinosaur, and make instinctive left-and-right turns to escape.

🚨 As we can see, the amygdala can be a helpful thing — an automatic device that helps our body respond to danger.

❗ The problem is this device was programmed when there was danger all around — dinosaurs on our left, tigers on our right, so we needed to constantly be on alert.

🧠 Today, there are no dinosaurs running around, but yet we still have this fear device in our brains…

💭 So how does this fear detector work in todays world? Does it adapt to the decreased danger?

Our Brain Can Send False Alarms

🔋 Without as many physical dangers, the amygdala has to find a way to use its excess fear.

🧠 Now in addition to physical dangers, it reacts to mental dangers as well:

💭 What if they don’t like me? What if I get fired? What if I make the wrong choice?

😨 None of these things actually threaten our survival. They are signals coming from a brain that wants to process more fear than is available in our environment.

🚨 So our brain now has 2 types of alarms: the alarms for actual danger, and the false alarms that go off because our brain is used to feeling fear.

How do we tell the difference?

Understanding Our Multiple Comfort Zones

Imagine you now have 2 different comfort zones: Your comfort zone, and your safety zone...

⏺️ Your safety zone prevents you from danger — from jumping off cliffs, from drinking poison.

🔘 Your comfort zone prevents you from fear — from being judged, from making mistakes.

✔️ The difference: It is okay to go past the comfort zone. In fact, that is our life goal.

✋ The safety zone is our fullest potential, but the comfort zone prevents us from getting there.

🪡 The comfort zone is lined with triggers and thorns that we don’t like to touch.

💫 But as we process these triggers and remove these thorns, we can walk further outside our comfort zone, and pick from the infinite opportunities that exist there.

🧭 Everything changes when we eliminate our false alarms, so here’s a practice to help with that.

Counting Walls: A Practice For Eliminating Fear

😩 Imagine you’re out for a run. At 5 miles you say “This hurts, I should stop.” At 6, you say “Ok, I can definitely stop now.” At 7, you say “This is too much, I can’t go any further.”

🛑 These are walls.

⭕ Walls are the thoughts that come up while we do difficult things. They are signs of the edge of our comfort zone — false alarms trying to keep us in our place.

🎇 But every time we climb a wall — we run a mile further, we cold plunge a minute longer, we talk to 1 more person at the party — we find new possibilities on the other side.

🎇 But every time we climb a wall — we run a mile further, we meditate a minute longer, we accept instead of resist — we find new possibilities on the other side.

✔️ So counting walls is a game you play with yourself — a challenge to see how many times you can feel fear; feel resistance; and keep moving forward anyway.

Every day — every moment — is an opportunity to recalibrate our fear detector and expand our experience of life.

Enhance this Practice with "Grounded"

🌱 Grounded M-State can support us in feeling safe, centered and solid as we experience difficult situations.

🤍 It works by increasing energy flow through the parts of our brain responsible for feeling present and connected to the earth beneath us.

🌞 For example, our autistic friend at ZP.Tech keeps a vile of Grounded in his pocket so he can feel confident and supported during social situations.

💭 Do you know anyone that may enjoy the energetic support of Grounded? You can explore further using this link. 

Keep Exploring

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