Conversations and Comfort Zones

Before leaving for Madrid, I set three goals for myself. This past week, I worked towards two of these goals: understanding others’ stories and stepping outside my comfort zone.

Conversations.

There are two conversations in particular that I want to share—conversations that really let me dig deeper to truly understand another’s story. I left these conversations feeling touched and inspired.

My first conversation took place at a cupcake shop over delicious vanilla cupcakes and café con leche. Sitting across from me was my friend M, a brave 18 year-old who made her own gap year program for herself between high school and college. We met my first Shabbat here at the Jewish Reform community, and she just returned from her trip to Paris. She traveled to Madrid in the fall to work as an au pair, “WWOOF” on a farm in the French countryside, travel across Europe, and spend time on a kibbutz in Israel. She has a certain energy and positivity to her character and presence, something that would surprise many who learn more about her. All of humanity carries things embedded within, things that aren’t always so apparent to others on the outside. M and I spoke of miracles. Me about my close friend falling off a 150 foot water fall cliff and surviving; her about her mother who was diagnosed with stage IV cancer when she was four years old and yet survived for ten years. Were the miracles rooted in spirituality? Or did they just happen? We didn’t have those answers. But that was okay. She lost her mother just before she started freshman year of high school. At first, I was scared to ask her to share more about her family with me, being oh-so-careful with how I worded and framed my question to learn more. But to my surprise, she welcomed sharing more. Perhaps this was because I earned her respect and trust. Or perhaps a certain solace comes with opening up to share with others.

My second conversation took place at a local neighborhood café over a classic Spanish drink and complementary papas fritas. Flashback to the week before when I reached out to the Lean In community in Madrid through the Lean In Cirlces Hub, a platform for organizing and connecting Lean In circles around the world. I have been longing to better discover and integrate myself into this beautify city I now call my home, and I hoped that a Lean In circle would be a vehicle for me to achieve just that. Of the three cirlces I requested to join, S accepted my circle request within two days, and within a week, I was on her calendar. At 9:30pm on a Wednesday night, we met, as this was when S finished her independent consulting meetings for the day. She wanted to pick my brain for ideas on how to better connect the working, busy women in her chapter; I was grateful for an opportunity to experience Lean In on a truly global scale.

Upon meeting S, I felt an instant connection to her because of our mutual passion of leaning in. And yet this was just the tip of the iceberg. Two and a half hours later, I hugged S goodbye and walked back to my apartment, mind spinning from my luck—was this luck … chance?—to have made a new friend and perhaps even found a mentor in Madrid. S challenged me to think further and deeper. What boundaries was I setting for myself unconsciously? What made me happy? Anything is possible, she repeated throughout the conversation, mentioning that despite where her life has taken her and all the things that happened that she never expected, she still accomplished all that she wanted to accomplish. She never would have thought she would marry an Argentinian Jew who came to Madrid as an Opera singer on a one-way ticket, only to have his original plan fall through. Right from the gecko, she was honest and upfront with me—saying that she had no hesitation to share everything with me. She spoke of her upbringing, of her father being Jewish and her mother being Muslim, and of how her family fled Iran as refugees to settle in various cities in Europe before immigrating to the US. She knows the feeling of accomplishing more than a parent. She also believes that anything is possible. I thought I was meeting her to help her improve her circle—not for her to give me advice on how I should make and find all business-related opportunities that will take me to Israel when I graduate. I didn’t realize I had a void of someone like her until walking home that night. Similar to a Lean In circle, where circle members help one another to accomplish goals and realize ambitions, she paused our conversation to reflect on what the root of the issue was—what did I need to work on? Towards the end, she helped me remember everything I would work on to start taking steps in the right direction of achieving my goals. The best part, though, was that night when an email arrived in my inbox from S. I always feel that it is my responsibility as a mentee to send the follow up thank you email. She beat me to it. Never before had I received a follow up email from a mentor; rather, I was the one following up and thanking him or her. This was special for me.

Comfort zones.

When sitting at the table across from S, I drew a picture for her in the notebook she brought to take notes in of my Lean In circle advice for her. When our conversation landed on the topic of comfort zones, I asked for her pen, turned the notebook towards me, and drew a rectangular box. Inside, I scribbled ‘comfort zone.’ I then drew a big, five-pointed star to the left of the box as well as an arrow pointing to the star. Beneath the arrow, I wrote ‘This is where AMAZING happens.’ This same figure was drawn for me just over a year before during a trip to Israel, and this was the same figure that motivated me to join the Outdoor Adventure Club two semesters ago.

Stepping outside of a comfort zone yields growth, learning, and opportunity. The more we step outside our comfort zone, the larger our comfort zone becomes, and the more flexibility we have to step even further outside of our comfort zone. Flashback to last Monday night when I just arrived in Madrid from Brussels and felt timid as I was about to navigate my way back to the center of the city using the Metro and needing to successfully make all three transfers to arrive home. Just before I lost wifi in the airport, a friend messaged a group asking if anyone wanted to go skiing in Spain the coming weekend—four days away. Without really thinking my decision through logistically, I said I was in. I was determined to ski the Pyrenees.

This past weekend was incredible. This was my first friends-only ski trip, and the irony was that these were all new friends—people I either knew for less than a week or met the day-of skiing. The pointy mountains, the blending shades of blue in the cloudless sky, my friendly Spanish on the chairlift, and the nice Spanish couple who helped me up after my (stupid) bad fall (next time remember the word for ‘ice’ before skiing) and find the medico at the base of the mountain all make up the painted colors of last weekend’s memory. Returning home after six hours of driving and limping on a sore knee, I still could not believe that I finally went skiing in Europe. Hopefully this is just the beginning of more outdoor adventures in Spain and beyond.