Day 34 – The No Comfort Zone

Today’s Action – Track my progress in photos.

I was innocently reading the blogs I follow last night when I stumbled upon the No Comfort Zone Challenge posted by Inside Out Café. Crap. I immediately had an argument – with myself.

Everything I do it outside my comfort zone!

Walking Stairs and saving money is NOT comfortable.

Stopping lattes and smoking generic cigarettes is not fun.

Getting up at 4 to write my daily post is leaving comfort!

After I let all that just run through – I thought of the photos.

A couple of weeks ago amotherknows suggested I take photos to track my progress which caused me to break out in a sweat.  I HATE photos.  My mother loves telling people how she has no photos of me because I hid from the camera even as a child.

I am always a little surprised when I see myself in photos or film because it never matches up with how I see myself.  A couple of years ago I was in a local PSA to recruit foster parents (I was a foster child).  I never saw it – I avoided TV for the entire six months it ran.

I had asked my husband to take a ‘before’ photo of me after the suggestion from amotherknows.  It sat on the thumb drive like a little grenade. In light of the No Comfort Zone challenge, I finally opened it up this morning.

There I was; all of me. I came very close to deleting my blog and walking away.

That woman will never hike the Inca Trail; she will never quit smoking, never change her life, never travel anywhere.

I turned my head to the voice on my shoulder and went ‘shhh’.

I modified the photo because this is how I see myself today – a sketch. I want my comfort to come from within me – not from hiding in the warm pile of fantasy and delusion. I want to find comfort in my successes.

I will take a photo each week as I struggle to define myself and become the person I was intended to be.