“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” —Maya Angelou
In 1992, a Chinese freighter mistakenly dropped a crate of 30,000 rubber duckies into the Pacific Ocean. Three months later, many of these “friendly floatees” were discovered on the coasts of Indonesia, Australia, and South America. Some daring ducks headed toward Alaska by crossing the Bering Strait and even sailed through the Arctic Ocean, finally landing on the coast of England.
Due to the accidental release of the rubber duckies, scientists were able to better understand ocean currents and wave patterns. Through this research, the ducks have introduced new opportunities to study more about the behavior of our oceans. These ducks not only contributed to oceanography research, but they also represent the idea of letting go of our comfort zone and trusting the rhythm of life to carry us to many other locations around the world. Our passionate intentions will shape our own lives and the world once they are given a chance to float on their own accord.
Metaphorically, this example shows us how breaking out of our comfort zones (in this case, the freighter) and trusting the current of life to carry us forward can not only bring us to fascinating new shores, but also contribute to a greater good in the process.
Breaking out of our comfort zones challenges us to expand our range of spiritual understanding and stimulate our personal growth. We can initiate this process by uprooting the negative habits and mindsets that form those “safe” zones. Throughout our lives, we have probably been conditioned by others to fit in at all costs, to adhere to prescribed rules and mores, and to be “perfect.” Even the people to whom we are closest may have rigid ideas about how we should live our lives—sentiments that can come from a desire to see us happy, a desire to fulfill their own needs, or both. For instance, a father may want us to live out his dreams and enjoy worldly success in the process, or a friend or spouse may wish us to play a defined role in support of their agenda.
We often become fixated on how others perceive and define us, and try to remain within limited parameters for fear of making mistakes, failing, or disappointing them because we desperately want their approval. But such behavior diminishes our sense of self-worth, limits our ability to make discerning choices, undermines trust in our own experiences, and muffles the voice of our spirit. There is nothing enlightened about “shrink-wrapping” ourselves so that others feel secure or fulfilled.
Many of us spend our entire lives accepting such limitations, believing that the comfort zones they constitute are the fixed circumstances of our lives. We become bogged down in daily problems that threaten to engulf us, and often feel as if we’re just going through the motions. As if on automatic pilot, we make the same choices repeatedly: eating the same foods, taking the same route to work, reacting to the same issues, and interacting with the same people. We do everything in our power to avoid expressing who we are and stay safely within the confines of fear, negativity, and complacency―and thus disconnected from our authentic selves as love. This disconnection from our power source drains our energies and reinforces a sense of futility and unworthiness. If we continue to live this way, we will miss opportunities to manifest our dreams because we are afraid to step out into our light and claim the power of our authentic selves.
Although it can be disconcerting, even painful, to step outside our comfort zones, spiritual growth requires us to take responsibility for the patterns, beliefs, and choices we make in our lives, and compassionately eliminate all that is not in alignment with our soul’s journey. In other words, by choosing to spiritually grow, we choose to love ourselves.
When we break free of our comfort zones, we no longer feel we have to sacrifice our worthiness. We let go of our fixations with what other people think, and show up fully—open to our worthiness, we embody—the affirmation that we know love because we are love. When we spend our lives people-pleasing, proving, or suppressing aspects of ourselves that don’t fit with who we think others want us to be, we remain hidden in the shame-shadows, stuck in the cycle of our own obsessive need for external validation.
When we break free of our comfort zones and surrender our resistance and control, we tap into an unlimited source of positive energy and creativity, and begin to see our experiences from an expanded perspective. From this “bird’s-eye view,” we can get new information about ourselves, our true desires, and our souls’ journeys.
This process of breaking free requires us to focus more on “being” than on “doing.” Accomplishments and achievements are wonderful, but if we are to live in a fully realized and authentic state, it is the light of our being, not the work of our hands that must shine forth beyond everything—for that is our connection to our divine source, and the basis for our full self-expression in life.
We must never be intimidated by our potential for love and spiritual development. Instead, we must be courageous, and break free of our comfort zones so that, like the rubber duckies, we can trust the currents of life to carry us to a more purposeful and adventurous future.
So here we go. One foot after the other, one deep breath at a time, one threshold after another to cross. Be one of those brave rubber duckies riding the currents into a purposeful future.
