Finding Your Comfort Zone Worksheets

I am a huge fan of The Window of Tolerance, created by Dr. Dan Siegel, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry. The Window of Tolerance is the space where you can handle stress in a healthy way and still be able to function and thrive. When we move out of our window of tolerance, we either shut down or become overloaded.

I realized that when that happens to me, it's always because I'm moving out of my comfort zone. Because I have depression, anxiety, and social anxiety - my comfort zone can be pretty small. There are even days where I feel like my whole life is one long path of discomfort.

They explore how many of us have atypical comfort zones.

The typical comfort zone model goes like Comfort Zone -> Fear Zone -> Learning Zone -> Growth.

I don't experience it like that and I realized why I absolutely HATE when people tell me to step out of my comfort zone - it's because in addition to the Fear Zone (which is conquered by self-confidence, motivation, and believing in yourself) I also have, what I'm calling the Dysregulation Zone: intense fear, panic, anger, and anxiety.

That dysregulation zone is another barrier that's made up of anxiety, trauma, or brains that just don't work in a typical way.

And all this time I've carried around this frustration with "step out of your comfort zone" because they always make it seem so easy and that I'm lacking bravery or confidence. And I really didn't realize until a few days ago how deeply that's affected me and why.

So instead of focusing on getting out of your comfort, these worksheets are about making your comfort zone bigger, enhancing your overall feelings of stability and security, and finding coping skills to make the dysregulation zone smaller so that when it comes to stepping out of your comfort zone it doesn't feel so impossible!