Is Your Comfort Zone Costing You Joy? How to Stop Playing It Safe and Start Living Fully

Hey, friends, today is going to be my last episode to talk about joy this summer.

So I'm going to start us off with a couple thoughts on that to wrap up that series.

And then I also want to talk about why we need to get out of our comfort zone and what is it costing us when we don't.

And the last thing that I want to wrap up with is just letting you know that I have some great interviews coming up.

So I'm going to start my guest series in the next two weeks.

So I'll be rolling out some amazing and awesome guests for the show, both authors and pastors, entrepreneurs and just, you know, everyday people that have something to share with us that I think will just enrich our lives and inspire and encourage us in our faith and in our everyday happenings.

And so I can't wait to bring that to you in the next couple months.

Welcome to Faith Filled Living, the podcast for women who want to find joy again, grow closer to God, and rediscover the woman he created you to be.

I'm your host, Kristin Panickers.

Each week you'll find encouragement, honest conversations, biblical perspective, and practical tools to help you experience more joy, purpose, and peace in everyday life.

Because the woman God created you to be is still there, and it's never too late to come alive to the life he created you to live.

All right, before we jump into today's episode, I did want to let you know, if you haven't already grabbed it, go grab the joycamp Summer Companion workbook.

It's free.

And you just go to kristinfitch.com joy and to grab that.

Now, I know we only have about a month or a little longer of summer left, but you can do this at any time.

I'm just calling it joycamp Summer because summer's a great time.

We have longer days.

A lot of us feel in a little bit better mood because the sun is shining longer and things like that.

But go grab that if you haven't already, because it's a great, fun resource to kind of get you reset to be thinking about these different.

These 10 different areas and where we can find more joy, where we can notice the joy and things like that.

Okay, so let me start us off.

So I've shared the idea that sometimes we need to just actually start noticing the joy around us.

And I had written this maybe last year, and I just want to share it.

Joy is found in the simple things.

When we allow ourselves to slow down, to notice, to move to the rhythms around us, to reconnect with nature to appreciate the sounds, smells, tastes, beauty around us.

When we allow ourselves to connect with another soul, and when we allow ourselves to connect with God, and when we allow ourselves to see the design, the divine, in everyday moments, that is where joy is found.

And I. I was listening to a video.

It's a woman named Brooke.

Her company's called Musical Breathwork.

And.

And she was sharing a really emotional video.

Maybe it was a week ago, but she was talking about joy.

And it hit me, right?

It resonated, and I had to write it down and I wanted to share it with you.

She says joy is living.

She says what makes it worth living is meaning and the pleasure and the joy that we derive from it.

Now, I'm not saying that that's all life is.

Obviously there's things that going to walk through that are hard.

There are going to be days that are busy and we're going to be tired.

But what we're saying is if you subtracted out meaning and purpose and finding enjoyment and finding peace, right?

This, the peace that doesn't make sense unless you have a relationship with Christ.

And I thought that was so true.

But here is what really hit me about what she said.

And she was talking about having had a great interview with someone that was her, a mentor.

But I couldn't figure out if maybe somebody she knew had passed, because this is what she said.

Joy is what leaves a dying body.

First that hit me, guys, like, I'm almost starting to get tears because it just kind of.

Because it's so true.

She went on to say, when you have joy, you have life.

And for any of you that have watched someone you love or maybe for your job, watch them slip away, whether it was because they had dementia or Alzheimer's, some sort of cognitive decline, whether they physically, you know, their body kept getting sicker and sicker or both.

When I watched my dad, you know, his body just kept getting worse and worse, and so does his mind and just being able to communicate well.

But the worse he got, the less joy he could express or experience.

And there are people that, until the last breath, they are joyful.

But when our bodies and our minds don't work properly, we start.

We can.

We can lose joy, right?

Especially with my dad, he had Parkinson's, so there was nothing he could do.

Now.

He was still very grateful, you know, until those last days where he, you know, basically started sleeping and not really, you know, verbally communicating, but, you know, it's just.

I've seen other people, and if you've been with somebody with dementia, you sort of understand this, right?

Because their mind isn't their memory, their mind isn't working properly anymore, and even their expression is joyless, right?

And so this is what I'm talking about.

So this really hit home.

So I'm going to say it again because I think it's important.

When you have joy, you have life.

And the opposite is joy is what leaves a dying body first.

And when I say.

When she says dying body, I envision that as.

As we get to a place where we're dying, even if it's it from the inside, right?

Where maybe you can't notice it on the outside.

And so I just thought it was really important to share that.

And once again, I think the way we live is by being alive, right?

In other words, it's not getting stuck in a routine or a rut.

It's not getting stuck in our comfort zone.

And yes, we all do this because life can become very structured.

You know, you go to work at the same time and come home from work every day at the same time.

Your kids have school at the same time.

Maybe there's certain nights of the week that you have, you know, a small group, or you meet girlfriends out or whatever it might be, or you have an exercise class, and that's okay.

But what I'm saying is, if we get so stuck in that we start to miss joy, we start to miss the wonder and the awe of life.

This is why there's different people that talk about this.

And.

But it's like every year you should at least go somewhere, right?

Go on a trip.

Like, get in front of a new experience.

I don't care if it's an hour from your house.

It could be a day trip.

It could be, you know, a week long trip, whatever you're able to manage.

But also every quarter, you should do something that challenges you.

Learn something new.

Stretch yourself, get another certification or take a pottery class.

But in other words, these new experiences, putting yourself in a position that you've never.

Somewhere you've never been.

Like, I, over the years, have gone to conferences by myself where I did not know a single person.

And it was across the country.

I've done that, gosh, at least six times, probably more than that.

And is it uncomfortable?

Heck, yeah, it's uncomfortable.

Do I feel nervous and anxious?

Absolutely.

But can I tell you, it makes me stretch myself so much because I don't have a buddy or my husband or whoever to lean on.

I don't have co workers to lean on because of Course, I've been at conferences where I knew people, but the ones that I didn't, it made me have to put myself out there.

I had to meet new people, and then some of the other solo people or groups would kind of combine and then we would, you know, go grab something to eat together.

Or at least we could connect at the conferences and kind of share our thoughts.

You know, what are we learning and what really kind of hit you.

So this is why when I've talked about the comfort zone before, it's so important.

We have to get out of our comfort zone.

And I've shared this before, but I want to share it again.

Carolyn Hawes of Substance Church says, your comfort zone is the greatest enemy to God's miracle zone.

And when we stay comfortable, often God can't use us.

And what do I mean by that?

There's so many good books on similar topics, but one of two of the books is by Bruce Wilkinson, I think one of which is called you Were Born for this.

But the whole book is basically about how we can partner with God and participate in supernatural things, right?

Like miracles, being the person that helps other people.

Okay.

And so the.

One of the type, the things at the back of his book that says is, what if I told you you missed a miracle yesterday?

And he says, lost the page.

Here we go.

He says we're never more fully alive and complete than when we experience God working through us and in spite of us in a way that changes someone's life right before our eyes.

Nothing compares to the wonder of seeing God, God's goodness and glory break through and knowing we played a part in it.

Let's begin with what Jesus said about the supernatural power of God.

And then later he just explains that it's doing good works for God is our ministry, which we all have a ministry.

Our life is a ministry.

That's why I've talked, probably not for a while, but I've talked about the ministry of you, which what that means is when you step into the world in your everyday life as a Christian, then you are showing someone what it means to be a Christ follower.

So that is your ministry.

So in every part of your life, you are showing up to say, this is what it looks like to have the fruit of the Spirit, to be.

To walk with Jesus.

But.

But the whole point is when we get out of our comfort zone and when we start partnering with God, we can participate in miracles.

And I'm talking about small things that are miracles, because when we change someone's life.

So for Instance in the book, he gives lots of examples, but we have to be ready and willing to participate with God.

And he will.

He will plan our steps and put us, you know, in front of or beside other people, right, that need something.

They might need help.

They might need an encouraging word.

They might have just need a smile from you in the grocery store.

But we're going to have these opportunities.

Sometimes they're going to be small.

For instance, I've shared this on the podcast before, but I was.

I don't know, maybe it was six months ago, I was in the grocery store, and, I mean, it looked like dark skies, but I didn't really.

I hadn't looked at radar, so I didn't realize that literally, like, it was going to be a torrential downpour.

So in the grocery store, it was raining so hard, you could hear it, you know, above you coming and hitting the roof, which is a very high roof.

So when I was going to leave, I looked at radar, and it was not going to let up for a long time.

So there was no way I could wait it out.

And I didn't bring an umbrella or a rain jacket.

So I finally am like, okay, I just got a bolt.

You know, I just got to get to the car.

But I also had to pull the groceries in, so I did.

But as I was waiting a minute or two to decide if I was going to just book it, there were several other people waiting underneath the, you know, the.

Well, it's a brick area, but it's kind of like a. I guess an alcove.

And they were waiting for the rain to let up.

And several of them were older women.

So basically, I went to my car.

I mean, I'm literally dripping.

There's not one bit of me or my clothes or my hair that's not just drenched.

But I, you know, I just have this, like, a little inclination to go to grab my umbrellas because I realized I had two in the car and go back and see if I could help these older women to their cars.

So I walk.

As I'm walking back up, I notice one of the women is looking at me.

So anyways, I go back and I say to her.

And then I look at the other lady and say, would you like me to help you get to your car?

Because I have two umbrellas.

And the one lady thought about it for a minute.

You know, you could see she was trying to decide, like, you know, size me up, if you will.

Like, am I this, you know, questionable person, or do I look trustworthy?

I Guess so she's like, okay.

So I give her one of the umbrellas, I get her to her car, and then I take the umbrella back.

But before I walked her, I asked the other woman, you know, would you like me to help you get to your car?

And she's like, no, no, no, no.

So she didn't want help, so we left her there.

But my point wasn't.

It was a miracle, right?

In that case.

But when we.

We do something that we didn't have to do, and I felt that urge, that inkling, like, go help her, it starts letting people see that there is goodness in the world, that we are willing to inconvenience ourselves for other people.

Now, sometimes, like in his book, Bruce talks about when he always has extra.

I think he always has extra money in his car and extra certain things.

So if he sees somebody kind of stranded on the side of the road, he is willing to stop and go talk to the person.

I'm not saying all of you should do that or anything.

So this is not about, like, making you unsafe.

I'm just giving you an example that he gave.

And he said, you know, he stopped in his car.

His.

This guy's car had a flat tire, and I guess he was waiting for the AAA or something to come, and.

But it was pouring rain, so Bruce let the guy get in his car, which, once again, I'm not saying that that's a good idea.

But the point is, he starts talking to the guy, and he's like, yeah, I have a truck coming.

Anyway, so the dialogue, and it turns, and Bruce is like, you know what?

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna give you money.

I don't remember what he shared with him, but, like, to pay for the.

The new tire.

And the guy's like, no, no, no, no.

And he's like, you know what?

Like, give me your address and I will pay you back.

And Bruce is like, absolutely not.

But the point is, as they started talking, it was actually a godsend that Bruce had stopped and the guy was, you know, having a tough time, you know, with his finances.

So.

And he shares a lot of bigger stories in the book about, you know, divine appointments and meetings and things like that.

But sometimes it's like you literally have an extra something.

It could be an extra computer because you got a new one.

It could be an extra tv, an extra sofa, extra mattress.

And someone in your neighborhood or your community or through your church might actually be needing that exact thing.

It's not even going to cost you more money.

You've already bought the new thing.

But for them, they don't have the money to get the new thing right now.

So often it's paying attention, it's noticing in that it's doing life with the people around you, whether it's at the grocery store or at your church, in your neighborhood, talking to people.

And so I only share that because I think it's really easy to get stuck in our comfort zone, put our heads down, go home and stream Netflix.

And I've said this before, my husband and I enjoy a good series.

So I'm definitely not saying, like, you can't ever do that.

What I'm saying, though, is we don't want to get so comfortable in our homes that we've made cozy and the temperature's perfect that we lose sight of life and what matters most.

That's what I'm getting to.

And I love what Emily P. Freeman said in her book A Million Little Ways.

It's part of her artist manifesto, which I'm just going to share one little line with you from it.

But she says, we are the mirrors of God on earth, the megaphones of glory, the hands and eyes and hearts of heaven.

In other words, and I think Bob Goff talks about this, we are one of the, we may be the only example of Christ that someone encounters that's not a Christian.

In other words, how we show up in the world, how we interact with every single person.

And I'm not, I know we're not perfect, we are not sinless.

But the more we show up Christ, like, the more people will notice and they'll say, how do you have this level of peace?

How do you have this level of joy when I see the storm swirling around you?

And so if we're not out in the world, we will miss the opportunities and we will miss.

And it's both a blessing to us when we participate and it's a blessing to other people.

And so just want to remind you this is one of the ways we tap into joy, is by participating in life and by partnering with God.

Okay.

And let's see, I wanted to share this other thing with you.

It's.

Let's see, it was from Chase the Lion, which is one of Mark Batterson's books.

But he's basically saying, are we living.

I'm sorry, he says, are you living your life in a way that is worth telling stories about?

And then he says, Dr. Neal, I think it's Rosie calls opportunities to be left on the table, inaction, regrets.

And then Mark Batterson goes On to say our biggest regret at the end of our life will be the lions we didn't chase, Right?

And by lions, he's really talking about, like, the dreams that God's put on our heart.

But I don't know about you, but I don't want to have regrets.

I don't want to have regrets.

I don't want to have inaction regrets.

And I'm going to share this with you.

So this week, I.

Let's see.

I.

In the last week, I did five things that were completely uncomfortable.

Two of them were trying to submit for new partnerships or opportunities, but they were.

They were big stretches.

And I have no idea if they'd even.

It would even be a consideration, right, for my.

Me to work with these companies, But I did it, you know, and honestly, I questioned myself, like, do I would I even want this?

But it doesn't matter.

I said, you know what?

I'm gonna.

I'm gonna try these different things.

And then I submitted to something else that will allow me potentially to have, like, another revenue stream.

And then I sent an invitation to three.

Well, actually, I did send three, but two people that I really want to have on the podcast, and one of them is already scheduled.

I'm super excited about it.

And the other one, hopefully I'll find out the beginning next week if they have a time in their schedule coming up.

But my point is, I've been wanting to send those invitations for a year or months, and it's not because I wouldn't do it before.

It's just that I'd be like, oh, well, I know they're in between.

They only do podcast interviews at certain times a year or if they have something else coming out.

So that was part of the reason I didn't do it before.

But my point is, I took the actions.

I was super uncomfortable.

And five things I did this week just related to me or the podcast.

And so that's just an example of.

But what if it works out?

What if you try and something fantastic happens?

Now, I'm not expecting everything that I went and tried to work out, but I can tell you that already one person said yes to the podcast.

The other one, I'm in contact with their person and they forwarded it to their book publicist.

So I'm waiting to hear from them.

A third thing, I got invited into this opportunity that I wanted for that potential new revenue stream.

And the other two, I haven't heard back on yet.

But my point is, everyone feels uncomfortable trying new things.

No one likes starting the new job or trying a new church or whatever it might be.

But guess what?

When we do it, or when we say, you know what, I'm going to go meet my neighbor because I'm new to my neighborhood, or maybe I've never met my neighbors because we none of us go talk to each other, just put one foot in front of the other and, and show up in your community, show up in your world.

And I would also, I also want to say this, and I know I'm really going far off now from joy and comfort, but I've been listening to a couple Christian missionaries and pastors that have been talking about the state of things in the country and not all of it.

There's so many things that could be talked about there.

And I do hope to have some new guests in the spring, the fall coming up that we can talk about more of those things to educate ourselves.

But one of the things that they were talking about is that in, let's see, Michigan, Michigan has right when I think it's the biggest population of Muslims that live near Dearborn in much bigger area, which obviously our country is free of freedom of religion country.

So the issue isn't people practicing different faith.

The, the struggle or issue is that Christians, I think a lot of us either don't want to get involved in things or we're, we put our head in the sand or we're apathetic or we've, we're so used to having the freedoms that we have in this country, even though some of those have been challenged and tested over the last, you know, many years, that we forget that we have to participate in all the processes, otherwise our way of life may go by the wayside.

And if you pay attention to some of the, what's happening in parts of Europe, some of our, some of their rights are getting taken away or their cities are getting overrun with, you know, people from other countries.

But, you know, I'm not even trying to talk about any of those things right now.

What I'm saying is more and more Muslims are getting nominated or elected into Senate or government positions across the country.

But the challenge with that is, is if you go listen to one who they're connected to some of the people.

I'm not, I'm not saying everyone's in the same place.

But then two, if you go and see what their agenda is, basically Muslims don't think that we can all just live lovely together.

It's basically they're going to try to implement their way of living on everyone.

If they had enough momentum and enough political power and able to change the laws.

So what I'm saying is we have to educate ourselves, and then we need to participate and we need to have conversations with our friends, with people at our churches or whatever.

We need to know what it is that could be taken away from us.

And I don't just mean by that example.

I'm just giving you an example in that.

But if we just.

If we don't try to keep our autonomy.

Right.

For instance, even with COVID we know some of the stuff's coming out about Fauci and whatever, but the point is, I want to live in a country where no matter what the topic is, that I have a freedom to choose how I live.

So, for instance, whether you get every vaccine or whether you didn't get COVID vaccine or it doesn't really matter, but I don't think we should be forcing things on people.

Right.

In other words, we didn't used to do that, and then we started doing that, and then we found out that there's some possible health implications from both the virus and the vaccine.

So what I'm saying is I want to live in a country where we do have rights, where we do have freedom, where every corner isn't surveilled like we're now doing with flat cameras.

So I say all this to say we have to get out of our comfort zones.

We have to educate ourselves.

We want to be a good example of Christ, but we also want to steward and build or rebuild or make sure we don't lose the country that we live in for those of us in the US So that our children don't grow up in a world that's so surveilled and locked down and potentially not even having freedom to worship, you know, or.

Or to practice Christianity.

And I'm not saying we're near that.

What I'm saying is if you talk to people from countries where they were, they lived in either socialist country, I'm not sorry, communist countries, or countries where they had dictators, if you talk to them and they live in the U.S. now, they're going to tell you, you.

You don't realize, and you're too nice.

Like, you don't realize some of the things that are happening are moving us closer to that.

And so I'm only explaining that.

Go and dig in some more about all of these things, because the more we start participating, even if we've never done it before, get out of our comfort zone.

I was just in my garden earlier, and I Was thinking to myself, you know, I have quite a bit of girlfriends that are very involved in politics from a perspective of like they work on the voting day and you know, they might try to educate people they know or maybe they go to a rally and.

But I thought to myself, you know, I've kind of, I've only done very limited amount of that.

My undergraduate major was actually political science, but as soon as I thought I was going to be pre law, but then I decided I really had no interest there.

But my point is, is after that I was like, I don't even want to know what someone to know what party I'm voting for.

Like, I didn't want to register with the party because once again I was like, that's my own choice and I don't want anyone to sway me.

And so I didn't want to be, you know, people to be like, oh, you always vote that way.

You know, I just, I just didn't think that they needed to know that.

But in this was, I'm talking 30 years ago at this point.

But that's what I was thinking at the time.

But my whole point is I was thinking to myself in the garden, you know, I think I need to start not just hosting stuff for Faith Fueled Living, which I've been planning to do locally and then obviously later on inviting more people to come and join me.

But I also need to start hosting women's events where we get educated on topics.

You know, bring in somebody that knows more than I know about a certain topic and let's mobilize because that is what other people are doing to try to get other things passed.

And so I know this seems like it took a pig detour and I'm sorry for that.

But this is sort of what was on my heart.

And it was relevant because I think one of the nominations in Michigan, I don't know if it already went to him, but it was the, the Muslim gentleman, I cannot remember his name right now.

And there was a huge march in Dearborn.

I think I heard it was like 45,000 Muslims.

And once again they are allowed to do that.

That is not my point.

I'm not trying to stop them from doing it.

It's that they are more organized and they have a long term plan about what they want to see in the United States.

And what I'm saying is if we're apathetic, we may lose some of what's made our country great, you know, for these 250 years.

That that's what I'm getting at.

Anyways.

Okay, so let me wrap this up.

Since we've gone, I've done sort of like a little twirly here.

The other thing is I just want to say that as I participate but also observe people in my life who are struggling with something, some of those are health related, some is dementia related and just other things like that.

What, what I'm observing is that we get so used to what we've done in the past or what we were told we should do or how we should go about something that we miss the potential breakthrough or we miss the potential healing, or we keep our problem on a pedestal instead of lowering it down and looking to God who is bigger and more capable than any problem or disease or health issue that we have.

There's so much data.

There's.

But anyways.

But my point about this is if we get out of our comfort zone, if we open our minds, if we go back to scripture, we may find things that help us more than we'd ever know.

But if we just do what we've always done, the status quo, we might miss out on the way that God wants to have us step into a breakthrough or help heal us, or help us improve a condition or help our marriage improve, whatever it might be.

So I only say that in the most loving way to say be open minded, go and talk to other people, look at what else is out there.

And I would also say with AI, be really careful because when I search something in Google or AI, even though I know something about the topic, let's just say alternative health things and certain supplements that are helpful for certain things, I will put it in one of those things, a search engine or some of the AIs and they won't usually give me those choices.

Or they'll say, oh well, there's not very much data on that.

Well, and I'm going to do an episode about this, but the AI will even tell you because I've asked it questions.

Well, mostly we're going to recommend what there's the most research papers on, but they're going to base it on what they've been told to give weight to, meaning, give way to things that are already standard of care.

But if something's not a standard of care and it's not covered by insurance and the normal doctors in that field aren't doing it, it's not really going to bubble up when you ask AI, like oh, what can I do for this?

You know, whatever you have going on.

So I want you to be careful and Find as many sources as you can for knowledge both in person, in books and online.

And of course, make sure it's a real person because there's more and more fake AI accounts coming up every day now.

So, once again, I only say all that to say we live our best lives.

When we're opened, when we're open, when we're open hearted, when we're open to wonder, we're open to awe.

When we're open to connection with other people, open to connection with God, when we're open to experiencing all the fruit of the spirit.

You know, this peace that doesn't make sense, joy that's overflowing, a calm that does not make sense when we're going through something like, you know, it goes on and on, right?

Gentleness.

And I'm not.

I know it's hard.

Listen, as much as I experience those things, there are times where, yes, the irritated, frustrated moments in my life, I, I get, you know, I get grumpy or frazzled just like everyone else, right?

So I only share all that to say the more we get we have time with God, the more we read and learn.

And not just scripture, you know, not just the Bible, but read new topics, read new books.

I mean, I'm getting new books probably every two weeks and books on every topic, right?

From natural healing to ending Alzheimer's to business books to cooking books to fiction.

I mean, you name it.

And so my point is, keep learning and keep digging further into Scripture.

A little at a time is fine.

That's often how I have to do it as well.

So until next time, I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

And don't forget, if you haven't grabbed it yet, go to KristinFitch.com joy and grab my JoyCamp summer companion.

Or if you go to KristenFitch.com and go to Workbooks, I have lots of things there for you to grab for free.

I have a Joyful Living devotional.

I have a Reignite yout Passion Workbook and so many more things.

So go check it out and as always, I would love to hear from you.

If you have ideas for the show, if you have a guest idea for me, reach out.

You can either email me from my contact form on my website or you can follow me on Instagram and then DM me there.

See you next time.

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