Mapping Comfort

Exploring your comfort zone, moving in the elastic zone and avoiding brittle zone.

I like to use mapping as a tool to journal and visualize what I’m feeling, experiencing and thinking. A nice entry point to mapping is exploring your current zones. Starting with the comfort zone - this is where experiences and tasks feel safe and somewhat pleasant, some things that could reside here could be napping, slowly stretching your body at home, writing your gratitude. These will be different for everyone and can change from day-to-day and moment-to-moment (which is why it can be nice to record and collect these to reflect on how these zones change over time).

Then we expand out into the elastic zone, here you can find ventures and tasks that feel a little less comfortable but that we can handle stretching into if we allow ourselves to flex a little out of our comfort zone. Some examples for me that could be placed here are, journaling about fear - I am able to take time for this if I am in the right headspace where I feel calm and secure in my environment, another example could be doing a zoom group call - another task that I can handle if I am keen to take part but maybe doesn’t come so naturally to my shy demeanour.

Lastly we have the brittle zone - this area holds the experiences that I shouldn’t force myself to make space for. For example, trying to be productive when I’m feeling overwhelmed and hormonal - for me it’s better to just take this time to rest and use my energy for things that feel aligned with my vibe. Another example could be stretching yourself to emotionally labour for someone else when you’re already stretched with your own issues and instead choosing to set boundaries.

I hope you find this method useful and would love to hear any feedback on your process, if you would like to share drop me a message on instagram or via email.

I learnt this method from Erin Bell a somatic practitioner - check out their website for a plethora of resources and embodied knowledge.