Skip to main content

The Comfort Trap: how getting out of your style-comfort-zone can invoke self-confidence and love


The comfort zone exists only to confine us to what we know, accept and are able to control. Let's get out of the comfort zone (read: trap); no growth is possible there. 

So that's a thing that came into my head just now, while I was thinking about how to write this post that I promised to write yesterday but was unable to due to crippling anxiety. It's weird how the majority of my anxiety resides in 'the comfort zone'. You'd think it would primarily dapple everything outside of what I know and am able to control, but no: work, everyday tasks, health - they are all drenched in it. Anxiety is a malevolent house cat, it sits at the end of your bed, awaiting the next time it might be able to make your life uncomfortable. 

But! This post is not about anxiety, that was merely a side-track I scooted down for a few moments. This post is about wearing things outside of your comfort zone and how doing so can change your life for the better. It can induce feelings of confidence, achievement, and most importantly self acceptance. For this out-of-the-comfort-zone clothing experiment, I tried out two different things I wouldn't normally wear: 1) a bikini and b) a strappy top without a bra. 

Here are my reflections, with pictures as proof (in case you didn't believe me)!


The (dreaded, but actually okay) Bikini 

A bikini is no mean feat for most women, it's small, requires (apparently) some degree of hairlessness and is basically the equivalent to wearing your underwear, but outside, in front of people and often on a beach/beside a pool. If confidence is not in abundant supply, it can be pretty difficult. 

But! It doesn't have to be. I always love that phrase, I'm not sure who coined it, but if you want a bikini body, 'put a bikini on your body'! And damn straight! I found the whole process very empowering. I wasn't wearing masses of layers to disguise the tattoos, scars and what I deem 'excessive bits' and it felt good. It felt nice to let loose, to dismiss all the insecurities that came with displaying any degree of skin and to say to myself, it's okay to show some skin, you're beautiful. 


This positive self-talk often comes from stepping outside of the comfort trap. There might be a dress that you really love but feel 'wouldn't suit' you or just 'isn't you'. But if you love it, the style part of your brain is trying to tell you something: you should wear that dress. Maybe you think it wouldn't suit you because you've set parameters on what you feel comfortable in, or maybe it might accentuate parts of your body you feel don't look great. Well, I promise you, stepping outside in that dress might be difficult at first, but it will be wonderful in the end. 

Self-confidence is yours for the taking! I certainly obtained some by wearing this bikini. It's from Monki by the way. 


No Bra? Madness! 

In Winter, I'll go braless at the drop of a hat. In fact, I'd rarely wear one. I was a true jumper dweller and my nipples were never at risk of appearing unexpectedly, they were safely buried beneath layers of clothing. 

In Summer, it's not so easy. It's hot and layers are not a viable option, in fact, it's even sometimes too hot for bras anyway. But I really struggle to be care-free and bra-free at the same time. So, today, I braved it. 

Ultimately, nipples should not be sexual in any way, they serve a function entirely separate from sex and should not be considered taboo, but unfortunately they are. And this needs to change, I would love it to change. There are merely ducts atop some breast tissue. Men have exactly the same situation, with a different amount of breast tissue, and can show theirs without issue. I vote for breast-tissue equality! 






I'll be honest with you, I didn't find this particular challenge very easy but I am so glad I did it. It was freeing and it made me feel like truly embracing my female body. The comfort trap was challenged and I benefitted from it. I would love to hear your experiences about going braless! Let me know in the comments. 

So, back to the main point: no style-growth can occur through only sticking to the same pieces all the time, so experiment. The degree of discomfort soon fades away and you're left with a new look in your arsenal. It's so worth it. I hope these two examples resonated with you guys, let me know if they did. 

Stay fab and thank you for reading! 
Instagram @jumper.dweller 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not-Dinner-Party-Appropriate: anecdotes from the mental hospital

 I feel like a time traveller. I've awoken in 2021, sleeping through a pandemic and my teenage years, now in my mid-twenties. I have no dinner-party-appropriate anecdotes. Only mental ill-health with bouts of questionable wellness. I have been in four different mental hospitals, which I predict could be four more than most people. No one talks about it, including me. Like, at all.  Whenever someone talks about mental illness, there is this most impenetrable silence, followed by: 'I knew someone who was depressed once.' Or a casual, almost nonchalant change of subject. I mean, we talk about mental health a lot - how to keep it afloat, how to do 'self-care' in a commercially-assisted sense. It's all body butters and face masks.  I don't like it when people reduce preventing mental illness down to looking after yourself or not. That is a large part of it, a whole team of people looked after me at my worst. Most things cannot be made better with a face mask.  It...
3 comments
Read more

Imposters: a story about a Capgras delusion

  It's cold. I'm always so cold. My hands quiver blue and wrists bloom purple, after days of bang, bang, banging my wrist on the arm of my chair. I don't think I'm okay, but I don't think I'm not okay either. I think, I think, I think I'm breaking. I am on the children's ward. I have not seen my real parents for months. Some strange people visit sometimes. I hide from them. They are not my parents. They are often nice and I begin to trust them, then they'll do something off-kilter and I shy away again, like a beaten dog.  I had climbed out of a window, bawled through the lane outside the house and taken solace at a friend's home up the road. Gently I was led back to my childhood home and bundled into the car, driven to the hospital and admitted in hopes of finding a way to avoid another inpatient admission. We couldn't find one.  I arrive at the unit, brittle. Last time I was in this position, I had a home, but now I'm adrift. My parents ...
2 comments
Read more

Building Bridges: breaking down the stigma that surrounds schizophrenia

Hi folks, another more serious post here (I promise there'll be a fun one very soon), as it's just come to my attention that it's mental health awareness week and that's a topic that deserves to be covered. This post might a little off-the-cuff as I've not planned or really thought it out, but here we go. Are you ready?  Schizophrenia. Most people hear that word and shudder. They might think of serial killers (admittedly, some do have the illness), violent outbursts, mental asylums, or just utterly unmanageable people. You might even be thinking (if you have no awareness of what schizophrenia is) that a person with the illness might have multiple personalities. This is not the case and I am living proof.  Without a doubt, the media's portrayal of schizophrenia, and indeed any psychotic illness, has highlighted the parts of the illness that the public most fear. Yes, sometimes unwell individuals might lash out, hurting medical specialists, family, ...
3 comments
Read more