Comfort Zones: Embracing the Beauty of Awkward and Uncomfortable

Exploding this Reality by Cherie Roe Dirksen

“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” — Brian Tracy

The comfort zone, for those who are unfamiliar, is that cozy place where we feel all squishy and safe. Trouble is, the comfort zone is not progressive.

Kicking Butt or Laying Low?

Let’s face it, if everybody was indeed Kung Fu fighting, we’d have a global population of ninja’s urinating all over their comfort zones. Any dedicated activity, drive or passion requires — at some point — the collapse of the comfort zone or pushing yourself beyond what you think you can do or achieve.

No great man or woman became great by not bothering.

“I have stepped outside my comfort zone enough to know that, yes, the world does fall apart, but not in the way that you fear.” — Tan Le

Hence, — if you don’t push yourself past your comfort zone — there will be very little chance of:

  • Super serious adventure (the type that involve dizzy daydreams and hullabaloo)
  • Mind-pickling creativity (envelope-pushing, innovative stuff)
  • Dashing acquaintances (bow-ties, glass slippers…maybe even a hint of Spandex?)
  • James Bond type action sequences or even those swanky Bond-ish cocktail parties (no, not in your cards if your comfort zone has it’s way — it’ll be Saturday night at the town hall playing Bingo for you!)
  • Rave reviews, lavish affections and golden opportunities (the kind geese lay with cherries and lashings of champagne on top)
  • Anything more exciting than fluffy slippers, junk food and watching Netflix…(as lovely as that can be, that isn’t all life has to offer)

“A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.” — Denis Waitley

Not bothering quote

What Mr Waitley is trying to convey is that an exciting life — injected with passion and pizzazz — is never going to be yours if you’re not willing to dip your toe into the icy waters of liquid potential. Liquid potential can be freezing, dark and wet but it could also hold the treasures of a sunken ship in it’s watery abyss.

If you never try, you’ll never know…sad thing is — if you don’t try you’ll always know. Familiarity breeds contempt. You’re potentially going to lose respect for yourself if you don’t pluck up the courage to venture into the unknown.

“Comedians tend to find a comfort zone and stay there and do lamer versions of themselves for the rest of their career.” — Chris Rock

Heart Wisdom, Feedback and a Gushy Ending

When you fling yourself out the door of familiarity into the wild and exciting wilderness, always remember that there is never failure only feedback. Even if you do stumble out there in the ‘uncomfortable’ zone, don’t give up! The only place you’re going to find wonder and miracles is out there — so dust off and soldier on.

Thing is, IMHO, your comfort zone is in your heart — it should be what you carry around with you on the inside. It’s never going to be ‘out there’. Read related article: How to Use Your Heart Wisdom

If you’re comfortable with change and you’re 100% in your integrity, you can demolish the comfort zone and never look back. All the magic you may be yearning for lies just outside of that comfort zone — the enchantment is just waiting for your leap of faith.

“The further you get away from yourself, the more challenging it is. Not to be in your comfort zone is great fun.” — Benedict Cumberbatch

Other articles you may enjoy:

5 Tools to Stop You Worrying

3 Ways to Kick Your Fears to the Curb

It’s Time to Go Beyond Belief — Here’s How…

How to Stop the ‘Monkey Mind’ Phenomenon

How to Redesign Yourself From the Cellular Level and Beyond!

Find Out How to Tune Into Your Personal Higher Vibration

Prayer: Where Did it All Go Wrong?

exploding-this-reality-queen

 

The art used in this article is called ‘Exploding This Reality’ and was part of my solo exhibition called ‘Rocking Art’

Click on the picture of the painting to your right to take you to my gallery. The original painting is still for sale (at the time of this article publication).

 

Exploding This Reality’ by Cherie Roe Dirksen

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Boxed Canvas

28″ x 28″ x 1.5″

$1645 (international shipping incl.)


You can now hear Cherie Roe Dirksen on Big Indie Giant radio as she reads out select articles on air.

She also gives weekly news headline updates taken directly from the Conscious Life News site, so be sure to tune in.

Cherie Roe Dirksen is a self-empowerment author/columnist/radio presenter, multi-media artist and musician from South Africa.

To date, she has published 3 self-help and motivational books and brings out weekly inspirational blogs at her site www.cherieroedirksen.com. Get stuck into finding your passion, purpose and joy by downloading some of those books gratis when you click HERE.

Her ambition is to help you to connect with your innate gift of creativity and living the life you came here to experience by taking responsibility for your actions and becoming the co-creator of your reality. You can follow Cherie on Facebook(The Art of Empowerment — for article updates). She has an official art Facebook page (Cherie Roe Dirksen – for new art updates). You can also check out her Facebook band page at Templeton Universe.

Self-Empowerment Books by Cherie Roe Dirksen:

              

 

Fun with Fruit and Vegetables!

As promised, I am continuing with the unveiling of my Vege-Tate Gallery in today’s Art Blog.

If you missed out on last weeks blog — here is a recap:  How many carrots does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Here are the last of the designs (for now — I see this as an ever-growing project!):

For all the Steve Jobs Fans

Even lettuce can be corny!

Yeah, we’ve all heard this one before!

Another one for the well-endowed lady…

Juicy, very juicy…

No orchestra is complete without one!

Is your Grandmother sheepish?

Enough is enough…a special thanks to Templeton for coming up with this one!

The sorrows of love (and the pining that ensues)

If coconuts had udders, coconut milk wouldn’t be so readily available

To check out the store in its entirety, please CLICK HERE.

I have another store dedicated to these amorous fruit and vegetables, where you can find a host of products such as key-chains, aprons, mugs, iPhone skins, magnets, cards, mouse-pads, bags and a whole lot more…ENTER STORE HERE

   

How Many Carrots does it take to Screw in a Light Bulb?

I’m not too sure what the answer to the joke is…perhaps none as they were all rooted to the spot?

The Vege-Tate Gallery — Beginnings…

My idea for a Vege-Tate Gallery grew into full blossom when my husband and I decided to try and plant a vegetable garden around the back of our house.

This was no easy task as we have vegetable guzzling baboons to contend with on a regular basis — so strong fencing and locks were needed for this venture to succeed.

I am happy to report that my actual vegetable patch is doing very well and is starting to bear the fruit of our hard-earned labour.  Well, except for the poor runner beans that never made it to the finishing line due to a critter biting them off at the base of the stem, which consequentially led me to create the ‘Has Bean‘ design.  You have to work with this!

Whilst planting the seeds of the garden, my mind started pondering all these crazy ideas for a vegetable joke shop with lots of corny but fruity ‘green’ humour.

The designs started to take shape as I sketched out the ideas as they came to me, with a little help from the hubby.

The Next Step

When I had a good 20 designs to work with, I began the digital journey of drawing them onto the computer (yes, using my mouse!  I am still using that old archaic rodent until I get my digital pen) and loading them as t-shirt designs.

I am officially launching my new gallery entitled ‘The Vege-Tate Gallery’ — I do hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed creating them.

The link to the store is here.

Below are my personal favourites.  Next week I will showcase the rest of the store along with some other fun merchandise from this range.

Literally for the man who has everything!

This one is for the ladies — especially the ones that can make a grown man cry!

For The Beatles fan

For the humble…

For the melon appreciation club

For the overworked!

For the political activist

Keeping abreast of things

Please let me know what your favourite design is!

John Cleese – Pushing Boundaries Through Comedy

WARNING:  PG 13 – Foul language used in this blog

I was fortunate enough to be able to go and see John Cleese‘s new show ‘Alimony Tour’ in 2012.

“Without these ground-breaking, side-splitting writers and actors we might never have broken the barrier of vulgar, fowl and completely insane comedy”

I have always been a huge fan of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python, not to mention A Fish Called Wanda and the latest triumph, ‘Spud’ – a movie made from the South African novel of the same title by John Van De Ruit.

The childhood memories of Basil Fawlty and the ‘deceased parrot’ skit are some of my fondest.  This so-called ‘black/dark’ humor has been my life-line in many occasions and it is all due to the genius of pioneer comedians such as Cleese and the Python team, as well as Connie Booth (Cleese’s first wife and co-writer and star of Fawlty Towers).

Without these ground-breaking, side-splitting writers and actors we might never have broken the barrier of vulgar, fowl and completely insane comedy.

Pushing Boundaries

Cleese mentioned that he was the first person to say ‘shit’ on the BBC and consequentially went on to be the ‘first’ person to say ‘fuck’ at the church memorial service for his fellow writer/actor/friend, Graham Chapman.  A tribute, Cleese declared, that his friend, Chapman, would have wanted him to fulfill at Chapman’s expense *grin*.

“With their light of humor, they shone laughter and mirth into the hearts of millions who needed to be uplifted from their daily grind.”

The Python team went on to push all sorts of boundaries with their completely zany comedy skits and movies.  The one thing they did achieve through this was a world-wide fan base and some of the best and most diverse comedy to hit the screens ever!

This opened up new avenues and diverse channels for finding humour in the mundane and darkest of places.  What’s life about if we can’t take the Micky out of everything!

Comedic pioneers, with their light of humour, shone laughter and mirth into the hearts of millions who needed to be uplifted from their daily grind.

On With the Show…

Mona Lisa grinThe show was about Cleese’s personal and professional history and what a journey it was!  From the humble beginnings in a one-horse town to the moment David Frost called him up to be on telly – the show takes you through the trials and tribulations of this mans extraordinary life.

Mother Cleese

I loved the story of his mother.  In a nutshell, she lived to be 101 years old – being born in 1900 and passing away in 2001, she experienced a centuries worth of tumultuous history – living through WW1, WW2 and the cold war – just to name a few major events.

However, according to Cleese, she never really noticed any of it due to her incessant fears, worries and phobias.  Something he later turned around when he offered to hire a hitman to ‘take her out’ if it made her feel better.  This made her laugh about her situation and from that moment onward they shared a special bond through his talent of ‘black comedy’.

The Effect on the Masses

What stood out for me during the performance was how all the thousands of people in the audience responded to some of the clips he was showing from his various shows.  The crowd was applauding, giving standing ovations and laughing merrily.

“When you have the ability to laugh, you have the ability to heal.”

This brought me to think:  How wonderful is laughter?!  It can unite so many people under its umbrella.  It can make us look at situations and find the humor, no matter how diverse in nature.

Laughter is the Best Damn Medicine

The human being has this wonderful gift – to laugh.  And, more importantly, to laugh at ourselves.  So many times, we take ourselves and situations too seriously.  When you have the ability to laugh, you have the ability to heal.

Be lighthearted and find something to laugh about every day.  You will reduce stress and you will be a fantastic person to be around.

Go on – have a laugh!

A Parting Word of Thanks (Just Don’t Mention the War!)

Thank you, John Cleese, and all the other comedians who pushed the boundaries and gave us all something to laugh about!  The echoes of laughter will linger long after you have moved on.

You leave this planet a much more jolly place to be in.  You all deserve medals for your contributions to pant-wetting.

Other articles you may enjoy:

What is Free and Priceless in the World Today?

Why Weird is the New Cool

The Dummies Guide to Awakening

7 Proven Tactics to Spread Joy Around the World

Does The Sun Shine Out Of Your Bottom?

Dare to Be Who You Are

A Practical Guide to Feeling Good