The Journey: Learning to stay inside your comfort zone

By SAMANTHA BRAZIE, Special to The Paper

‘Hot’ topic lately – the weather. Weather usually is a point of discussion when it makes people uncomfortable. We’ve talked a lot about pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone, but guess what this month’s column is about, Paper readers? Staying inside your comfort zone. 

Since we’ve explored the ins and outs of how healthy and challenging it is to push ourselves to do more, this topic is long overdue. Everyone is entitled to their own parameters, or boundaries. In fact, those are healthy as well. The sweet spot there is balance. 

Using weather as an example: while I fully understand what an unpopular opinion this is – the colder the better. I love to sit outside with my heaters, cuddle up and watch a movie, dress in layers, have boot envy and warm up by a fire. Our house is crazy cold to get good sleep. Several of my closest friends loathe the cold. So you can see outside activities could potentially be quite the challenge. However, by opening up temporarily to sitting outside with my friend when it’s 90 degrees because she enjoys it, I learned to appreciate it too. With a couple fans installed outside of course. 

But on the other side of things, I don’t believe that every businesswoman needs to wear high heels. Nothing wrong with wearing them but if they make you uncomfortable, that will always show. Having confidence in who you are as a person and how you walk into a room is far more important than an expectation that in the grand scheme of things, means very little. I’m sure there are plenty of people that disagree with me and that’s ok. Just because someone else is attractive doesn’t mean you aren’t. Just because someone has a nice house doesn’t mean yours isn’t. 

Always remember that you are uniquely you. Nothing and no one is capable of distinguishing your light unless you let it. 

“Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about knowing and accepting who you are.” – Ellen Degeneres