Outside my Comfort Zone

I read a helpful blog-post today: Life always changes: a lesson my dogs taught me

Please read the post, I'll wait...

Anyway, this post made me think about how difficult it often is for me to motivate myself to work outside of my own comfort zone, and yet how much I grow and change when I'm actually able to do it.

One example is my (almost) daily 3.5 mile trek into town. The first time I ran a significant portion of that (significant for me being maybe half a mile) without stopping, my legs were wobbly and I thought my lungs would explode. But the next day was so much easier (plus I knew I wouldn't drop dead).

Meditation is like that for me too. To sit down for 15 minutes twice a day and breathe--it seemed ridiculous. Useless, even!

But, persisting through the mind-chatter (What are you doing? What good is this? You should get up right now and add almonds to the grocery list before you forget!) has paid off in terms of clarity, focus and a small measure of inner peace.

As a matter of fact, reading "Life always changes..." is what inspired me to write my own post today. This exercise of a daily post is definitely outside my comfort zone. But, like so many other endeavors in my life, I know if I dance on my edge wisely, pushing just enough (but not too much), I will grow and change because of blogging, too.

As always, comments are welcome. But mostly, I'd like to encourage anyone reading this to judiciously push your limits, even if (no, especially if) you don't feel like it.