Tools & Tips
7 Steps to Real Joy

Health Magazine
May 2004

by Alexis Jetter

Judith Sills, PhD, wants to make you uncomfortable - not miserable, just a bit unsettled. A little anxiety is what it may take for you to find deep satisfaction, according to the Philadelphia psychologist, whose book The Comfort Trap or, What if You're Riding a Dead Horse? (Viking Press, 2004; $23.95), follows the New York Times best seller Excess Baggage and three other works. "My other books are about finding joy and meaning where you are," Sills says. "But sometimes you can't stay where you are. Sometimes the challenge is about transformation."

If you feel trapped in a job that has long since stopped challenging you, or caught in a marriage that isn't feeding your soul, or stuck in a rut of any description, Sills offers seven steps that may make all the difference in the world.

Your book is for people who feel stuck or numb. What's the connection? 
Judith Sills: This book is for the person who feels "Is this all there is?" or "If I could just get through the next five years..." It's for the person in some degree of pain, but whose pain expresses itself as numbness.

Lets say that you and your husband have been sleeping on opposite sides of the bed for the past 3 months. You've been meaning to do something about it, because no marriage ever got better because there's no sex. But you don't feel like it. Or the classic: Your job is both braindead and stressful. But you keep telling yourself, "I could never earn this money anywhere else, so I shouldn't quit." Or "I'm so busy doing this nothing job that I'm too drained at the end of the day to do the resume." It doesn't matter how unsatisfying or painful our lives may be - we get attached. I'm trying to show people how to unwrap those tendrils of attachment as gently as possible.

What is "the comfort trap"?
It's what you fall into when you think about taking action, even if the act is as simple as reaching across the bed and just holding that husband's hand. It feels incomfortable when you face up to a problem. And when we feel uncomfortable, we avoid. Whether you're sedating yourself or procrastinating, complaining, or blaming, fantasizing or denying, you have temporary relief. And temporary can be lifelong. That's the comfort trap: It's the relief of not facing a problem.

In your book you say, "We need to be comfortable to live fully, yet if we're too comfortable, something dies." What dies? 
The emotional investment in your own life, the taste a savor and sensation of waking up in the morning in a state of arousal. That's what dies.

So how can people get unstuck? 
The first step is: Face what hurts. What is painful, unsatisfying, stifling about your life? How can you stop distracting yourself from that pain so you can use it to improve your life? But it's not enough to say "Something's bad here." You can't move forward without a vision of what could be better. That's the second step.

You say vision is not a fantasy.
Fantasy is avoidance, gift-wrapped. A vision has very specific criteria. It has to be positive and under your control. And it has to point you toward a forward step.

It's the difference between "Someday I'll meet somebody and fall in love," and "I'm joining Match.com, and I'm smiling at three people today." A vision is doable. There are steps you can take to get there.

The third step is about deciding that it's time to move on. It's about moving from "I should leave this drunk I'm married to" to "I've made the decision to leave the drunk I'm married to."

How can you tell the difference between a slow ride on a wonderful horse and paralysis on a dead horse? 
You have to decide. The horse really is only dead when you decide to get off. But check for a pulse. How much energy is there? How long has it been missing? This is not about needing to be high all the time. Maturity means getting more satisfaction out of the status quo - up to a point. I'm trying to help people figure out what that point is.

You say the fourth step is identifying your patterns. Why is that important? 
Identifying your patterns is very motivating because it lets you see yourself breaking your own barrier. Say you're a person who lets somebody steal your ideas at work. You look back and see that you have a pattern of feeling inferior to a sibling. And you consistently create pseudo-sibling relationships at work, wher you lose out in the competition. Identifying that pattern might help. Next time you might just say, "I have choices here. I don't have to avoid this guy's disapproval just because it's scary. I can tolerate his disapproval."

On the other hand, you say that looking backward can also be a way of not making a change.
People come into psychotherapy with the expectation, "If I understand myself well enough, I won't be afraid. And I'll just stay here until I'm not afraid." It's as if looking inward and acting outward were opposites. I think it's about balance. You measure whether you are overly involved in the past by your productivity in the present and your movement toward the future.

So step five is figuring out what's holding you in place. What guilt, obligations or attachments do you have to loosen? As you contemplate taking action, feelings of loss and sadness come up. The friends who have been tedious suddenly tear at your heart.

I like what you say about step six, facing your fear - that comfort comes with an electric fence.
If you're hunkered in a comfort zone, you're not feeling anxious. If you start to step toward that fence, you will get anxious. You may say, "Where would I get the money?" Or "Maybe the reason I didn't become a lawyer in the first place is because I wasn't smart enough." So my job is to say, "Hon, that anxiety is out there for all of us. Lets talk about how you can get through it."

And the last step is doing the actual thing that has to be done, taking the scary step that throws you onto that tightrope: "We need to talk." "I've had it with you." "I want the raise." "You stole my work." "I quit." "Will you marry me?"

How do you know, in making a change, that you're not simply being selfish?
Well, you are being selfish. But let's define selfish, because the word is so loaded, especially for women.
If you decide to get the divorce because you fell in love with someone else, is that selfish? You bet. Do you do it anyway? Is it justified? And does it live up to your values? Be honest with yourself about the impact your decision will have on other people. If you believe in putting the kids first, then you have to face the fact that in most cases, divorce is not good for them. If you choose that route, recognize the potential conflict or pain, and take steps to minimize it.

Sometimes a vision is a glimpse of a third path - the realization that you don't have to simply stay or go. That third way could be a creative outlet, or a friendship that doesn't teeter into an affair but feeds your soul, or an encounter with your spouse that shows you something in the relationship you'd forgotten.

Ultimately, what goal should people set for themselves?
I don't judge how far people should go or when they should go there. My message is "Go forward." And I do know when I see the glimmer of a vision. When someone flashes a fragment past me, I can hook that for them. I try in the book to show people how they can hook their own.