Am I In An Open Cell But Unable to Leave It?
This is all about trauma, change, and the reality of what comfort zones are.
Life is crazy. So much is happening out there, is it any wonder we’re all losing our minds?
Here’s my personal dilemma. My therapist and I have seen numerous ways that I’ve improved my life. Overall, I’m in a really good place. Yet, for some reason, I feel stuck.
The reason? Because somewhere in the back of my brain, I feel like I’m missing something. What is it? I’m missing the troubles. The problems. Issues with this, that, or the other thing that have always seemed to be ongoing in my life.
In other words, my life is stable, and I haven’t the foggiest idea what to do with that. It’s like I subconsciously need the challenges, the drama, the issues, and the troubles. Because without them I’m feeling oddly stuck.
What’s that all about?
Trauma is a thing
The truth is that I’ve spent most of my adult life in combat mode. I’ve fought depression. There have been many struggles finding and keeping jobs (and getting paid anywhere near what I’m worth). During most of my 20s and 30s, I moved through a lot of relationships and attempted to put my polyamorous, square-peg self into a monogamous round-hole box. Then, if that’s not nearly enough entertainment, I’ve struggled with my weight, self-worth, and working on balancing my emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing.
In the past 15 years or so, things have shifted. A lot. A great deal of the instability has been stabilized. I’ve made a ton of progress in understanding the raw elements of my emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical health. By embracing being wired for polyamory rather than monogamy, I’ve established far more balanced and substantial relationships, including an incredible marriage. I stopped trying to work inside the corporate America model and found jobs more in line with my skillsets and temperament while pursuing my art as a sci-fi and fantasy author.
This has had its ups and downs. There have still been struggles along the way. Yet overall, here I am, balanced and largely perfectly okay and in a good place mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Room for improvement remains, but that’s life, really.
However, despite more than a decade of greater stability, the three prior decades of my adult life in struggle have created trauma. While I’m in a good place overall, the trauma of the past struggles is still manifesting itself. This is what’s caused me to feel like I’m in an open cell that I can’t leave.
Why? The cell is a comfort zone.
The open cell is a comfort zone
Comfort zone is an inaccurate term. That’s because, though it implies comfort, mostly the zone is one of familiarity. You know it, what’s within it, how it works, and all that you can expect from this zone.
It’s comfortable only because it’s familiar. When faced with the uncertain and the unfamiliar, having a comfort zone can and will make you feel stabler and better overall.
The problem is that from within your comfort zone, your growth is massively limited. That’s because to grow, evolve, and command change, you must be willing to move into the uncomfortable.
This is the ultimate open cell you can’t leave. Or more realistically, are afraid to leave because outside of it is the unknown.
As I’ve come to this place where my life is largely stable and untroubled overall, fully partaking of it requires me to step out of my comfort zone.
Look at that, it’s an open cell. I’m only unable to leave it so long as I believe that to be how it is.
Guess what the key to leaving the open cell is?
Applied mindfulness
The powers that be, on many levels of society, prefer that you and I live as subconsciously as possible. Get into habit, rote, and routine, follow the masses, and be a cog in the machine.
The expectations of society overall are like a warm blanket on a chilly night. The comfort they represent is desirable and appealing. That is until you realize you’re allergic to the material of the blanket.
It’s not a bad allergy, you think. My nose always ran a little, now it’s running a lot. That’s fine. This is one of many lies “they” would like you to accept and embrace. It’s familiar, it seems comforting, but it’s not.
What can you do? Practice active conscious awareness. Mindfulness is being actively aware, here and now, of your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and choice of a positive or negative approach. That present awareness opens the way for you to see not how it should be, or how “they” desire it to be, but how it is.
This, however, can be really disconcerting. Particularly if you have been practicing mindfulness with a modicum of success. For example, via that practice, you’ve also made active choices and decisions for how to live your life, your way.
This is why I write fiction full-time, hold two part-time jobs as a jack-of-many-trades for a pair of entrepreneurs, fight with swords as a hobby, and have an incredible polyamorous relationship with my wife. Many of the steps to go to these places disregarded the norm or expectations almost completely.
Even with these choices, I still find myself in an open cell representing a comfort zone that’s holding me back.
How do I leave the open cell?
One foot in front of the other. To quote Lao Tzu,
“The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.”
The first step is to recognize that I’m in a cell. The second step is to recognize that it is, in fact, open. Then, the third step is to acknowledge this. Skipping acknowledgment is the equivalent of recognizing that the first step out the door is a 2-foot drop, but not taking that into account when you take the step.
After recognition and acknowledgment, the fourth step is to leave the open cell. There is, however, an important bit to keep in mind here. Why?
What is my why behind leaving the open cell? To leave a familiar but not comfortable place is a good answer, but still doesn’t explore the next part. Where am I leaving the open cell to get to?
That’s the tough part. It requires that I strike a balance between where I am, here and now, and where I desire to be. To get from here to there, steps must be taken. You can rarely go from place to place with a single step.
Ergo, leaving the open cell with a direction in mind is all you need.
I know that this open cell I’ve been unable to leave is the remnants of old trauma. It’s comfortable only because it’s familiar. Hence, I recognize it, acknowledge it, and am lifting a foot to step out of it. That’s what this essay has been all about.
Thanks for reading. Have you ever found yourself in an open cell you had a difficult time leaving?
This is the six-hundred and forty-fifth (645) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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