Why I chose NOW to create this substack (or, the vulnerable post about comfort that I almost didn't share)

I had intended a completely different post for today…one all about my definition of magic. But I didn’t like the post. My writing wasn’t very good. One of my ancestor guides showed up, gave the post some serious side-eye, and said, “Yeah, don’t post that.”

“What should I post instead?” I asked.

Then he showed me this essay I wrote right after being laid off a few weeks ago. I had never intended to share it. It has very little to do with witchcraft, metaphysics, or magic in general. It feels off-topic for my brand new substack, plus, it makes me sound a tad whiney.

BUT I have learned to trust these ancestor guides, so I sighed and said, “Okay.”

My guide shrugged and added, “Maybe you’ll help someone feel okay about seeking comfort.”

To any fellow comfort-seekers out there, this one’s for you!

My dream image of comfort

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For the last ten years, I’ve led a group in a year-long transformation process. Each year, we declare something we want to invoke and something we want to release. After 2022 tried to kill me, I decided that for 2023 I needed to invoke comfort and release hardship.

Because my spirit guides think they’re hilarious, they decided this meant that anything and everything that did not directly support my invoking comfort needed to completely fall away from my life. Trouble is, their definition of comfort isn’t always the same as mine. Case in point, the most recent thing they figured I am better off without is my day job.

For me, reliable income fell under the definition of comfort. For the spiritual forces that think they know what’s best for me, getting rid of toxic relationships is way more relevant to comfort than reliable income. I worked with a pathologically dishonest and manipulative person, but had compartmentalized it as something I only had to put up with for eight hours a day. The rest of the time was my real life, the time when I was free to be wholly me. My guides reasoned that dissociating would never be a hallmark of true comfort.

So they did their magic weaving on the path of my destiny and—poof!—the job I’d had for twenty years simply disappeared. (Are you comfortable now?)

They were right of course. It was long overdue to cut those things out of my life in order to continue on the path of comfort. While I’d thought 2023 would be a year of quiet, gentle recovery after one of the hardest years of my life, I’ve learned that a deep dive into comfort has actually been one of the most profoundly transformative years yet.

By the end of 2022, I felt beat down. I had originally thought that for 2023 I would invoke something about feeling in-love with my own life; feeling enthusiasm and deep joy. But as the beginning of the year approached, I felt afraid of that. I worried that the Universe would send me things to practice being in-love with my life in spite of circumstances. It felt like so much work. And I was so very tired.

I felt tired of having to search—to dig—to find joy. I no longer wanted to have to frame my perspective of suffering in such a way for it to be a positive experience. I just want to be done with experiencing suffering at all.

So being in-love with my life suddenly felt like too much. Too much feeling and too much effort. On top of that, I had developed feelings of mistrust in the Universe, in my spirit team. I wondered what sort of tough-love bullshit they’d hand me to learn the value of loving my life the hard way. I felt so dark and heavy. I’d lost my faith.

Then my sister said that she was going to invoke “comfort” for 2023. I heard that word “comfort” and my whole body sighed. It was exactly what I needed too!

I knew there would be judgment, though. From myself and others.
The first person I told that this was what I wanted to invoke for 2023 said that staying in your comfort zone leads to weakness, and that it’s only through being uncomfortable that we can develop real resilience.

Maybe.

But you can’t be resilient when you’re broken. When you’re stretched and shattered beyond any elasticity, there is no space for resilience. I believe you first have to have your feet firmly rooted in your comfort zone, before there’s any hope of expanding beyond it.

What I wanted was to stop feeling the need to be resilient at all. Of course there will be times when we need to be resilient. But not every day. Resilience ought not be a sustained state-of-mind.

Not long after that conversation, I saw an Instagram post by a beloved teacher of mine. He was discussing the merits of heart-centered living versus being in the head all the time. That’s a good message, I thought, but then he wrote, “Mind can seek to control, manage others, reinforce identity, and justify a life focused on comfort.” Ugh. Now I felt judged by my teacher for desperately wanting a life focused on comfort.

But I took a deep breath and realized I was okay with the judgment. There’s part of me that sees comfort-seeking as weak too. I understand this. And it was time for that part of me to be quiet and get comfortable.

Only moments later, I got a random junk email that talked about comfort. (This is what happens nearly any time I decide to pursue something. The Universe hands me random things that seem to ask, “Are you sure?”). The email had a quote in it that said, “The ego wants comfort. The soul wants ecstasy.” The gist of the email was about how seeking comfort keeps us small, and that our souls want us to get out of our comfort zones. Again, I was struck by how much this notion is woven into our culture. 

I questioned all of this. There seems to be so much shame surrounding the desire for comfort. It really does permeate our society.

And yet, everywhere I look, I see people silently screaming for comfort—to feel safe, held, and supported.

I know I’m not alone in this.

Is it even true that seeking comfort keeps us stuck? It almost seems like yet another layer of an imbalanced patriarchal/capitalist ideal.

I feel like life will give us plenty of opportunities to stretch beyond our comfort zones. There won’t be a shortage of that. And, so, do we need to intentionally pursue it? Is it true that we stay weak and small if we choose comfort? Does expansion really require discomfort?

I did a little searching and found an article called Comfort Zones: An Alternate Perspective, written by a woman named Elaine Mead. In it, she discussed the idea of the comfort zone as being a sort of continuum. On the outer edge of the comfort zone is an area she calls the growth zone and beyond that lies the panic zone.

She writes, “Your growth zone exists outside of your comfort zone but is not a place of stress, on the flip side, it’s a place of opportunity. This is a space well worth exploring. When it feels right for you to do so.” But if we’re not in a good mental or emotional place—or if we push too far beyond that growth zone—we can end up in the panic zone.

She also says that the term “comfort zone” was coined by a Business Management Theorist who was specifically looking at job performance. He defined it as a psychological state in which things feel familiar to a person, and they are at ease, and in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress. In this zone, a steady level of performance is possible.”

Nothing wrong with steady performance in my opinion. So, originally, the comfort zone was not viewed as this place of weakness and stagnancy.

Elaine Mead then goes on to say, “Thus in a nutshell, our comfort zone is the sweet spot, but if we want to achieve optimal performance, we have to step outside it just a tiny bit, but not too much…Yes, a lot of magic can happen when we take a chance and step over into an area of growth. But what is deeply comforting, is knowing that your comfort zone is there, waiting to welcome you, when you need it.”

THIS is what I’m cultivating in 2023: getting this foundational place of comfort built, rooted, shored up, secured, and emplaced. It is from this place that I can then stretch into growth, enthusiasm, joy, and, if needed, resilience. I will know, all the while, that comfort is my foundation—my sanctuary—should I need it. But I have had to focus on building it first.

In the initial days after being laid off, I had numerous friends tell me how excited they were for me. They said I was finally unencumbered, free to live the life I was meant for. In my head, I agreed with them. But my heart was hurt by the way I’d been treated, which then pissed me off because I didn’t want to waste time feeling hurt. I couldn’t wait to FEEL as excited as my friends were. One night before bed, I asked my guides to send me a dream with guidance on processing the emotions more quickly, you know, so I could hurry up and get to the good stuff.

This was the dream I had:
I am taking a shower in what looks like a cave; the walls are made of stone. Suddenly the water gets ice cold and I shriek, jumping out of the spray. As I’m standing at the edge of the water, a beautiful voice tells me not to be cynical. The voice tells me that the water will warm again soon. I feel entirely reassured by the voice and I step back under the shower. The water is still cold, but I am filled with a knowing that it will soon warm again. Sure enough, the water begins to warm. I look down and see that under my feet is a very plush mat. It feels superb on my bare feet. I realize as I’m looking at it that it is my ground of comfort.

When I woke, my heart was filled with gratitude for having received such a perfect answer to my prayer for guidance. As I stand on this ground of comfort that I’m building, I am certain that all will be well. Life might get cold sometimes, but it will warm again.

Now that some things that were causing discomfort (ie, my former day job) have fallen away, my life is finally congruent.

Maybe, there is no greater comfort than that.

What this specifically looks like now is that I am dedicated to writing about the magic in my life, helping others on their path, and building the publishing company of my dreams to assist other like-minded folks get their messages out to the world.

Here’s to walking life’s path in comfort!

Next week we will dive into archetypes, tarot, magic and more. In the meantime, I would love to hear about YOUR relationship with comfort. How is it showing up for you?