Comfort Zones

I was assigned 'Comfort Zones' as my next blog topic, kind of in keeping with a comment someone made on my last blog re fitting ourselves into certain shapes. I googled the term, and arrived at Wikipedia... so being the tired/lazy cheat I am, I'm doing a cut and paste exercise. I've underlined sections that jumped out at me, specifically in relation to the last blog... Others are colour coded - cos I'm in a strangely aesthetic mood - to help you cross-refer!

The term comfort zone is used to denote a type of mental conditioning(a) resulting in artificially created mental boundaries, within which an individual derives a sense of security.

These boundaries tend to result in an internal state of mind(b), an example of which would be rigid attitudes and beliefs, which may not necessarily be true. This may or may not manifest as an external situation in the individual's life.

A comfort zone may result when the mental concept that a person has about something and actual reality of it, are not congruent with one another. A classic example to take would be of self image(c).

Self-image may consist of three types:

1. Self image resulting from how the individual sees herself
2. Self image resulting from how others see the individual
3. Self image resulting from how the individual perceives others see her

These three types may or may not be an accurate representation of the person. All, some or none of them may be true.

(a) Mental conditioning may be attributable to several causes - mass media, society, peers, parents etc. All of these may directly or indirectly create mental conditioning.
(b) State of mind redirects to Miriam Webster definitions of Mental Health, namely:
"A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life."
(c) A person's self image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, sex, I.Q. score, is this person double-jointed, etc.), but also items that have been learned by that person about himself or herself, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others. Those items include the answers to such questions as:
Am I skinny? Am I fat? Am I attractive? Am I weak? Am I strong? Am I intelligent? Am I stupid? Am I a good person? Am I a bad person? Am I masculine? Am I feminine? Am I likeable?