Your Comfort Zone vs. Development (And Why It Matters)

"You can do something extraordinary, and something that a lot of people can't do. And if you have the opportunity to work on your gifts, it seems like a crime not to. I mean, it's just weakness to quit because something becomes too hard..." ~ Morgan Matson

I love this quote because it says something incredibly powerful, but it very nearly did not get to be part of this post.

Why? Because the word "weakness" felt a little harsh and judgmental. So if you felt a little triggered by the comment, then you're 100% in the right place.

I sat with it for a while, and it made me realise that this is exactly the right quote because it not only highlights our emotional landscape but the need to regulate and balance it, leading me nicely to the introduction of self-awareness, something we will touch on in far more depth as you navigate further into your development journey.

It makes sense to delve a little deeper here, because your reactions set the scene for your development journey, and it's important to identify that not being ready is not weakness. It's just that, not the right time. This doesn't mean that you're incapable, but that you're learning, or in process. Seeing this and feeling comfortable and not defensive is important.

There is a definite difference between "not ready" and "not willing." Seeing this as part of your journey will be a lot easier.

Your spiritual journey walks hand in hand with self-awareness, a meeting point that is never crowded, like the extra mile or consistent effort. So with this in mind, let's look further into why your comfort zone is holding you back.

The Confusion

When I first joined a spiritual circle, I wasn't sure if I could actually do it. I knew I was psychic, but although I had experienced mediumship, I was uncertain if I had the capacity to connect with the spirit world. In some ways this was an advantage because I had absolutely no expectations. I was driven more by the chance that I would get a message from a loved one through my mentor.

I sat in circle for at least six months, and nothing remarkable happened. There were plenty of others who were more advanced than me, and at the time this made me assess my progress often. What I realized quite quickly was that my experiences were not visual. I was searching most of the time. If I did manage to feel a deep connection to something, it was fleeting, nothing to write home about.

I saw lots going on around me and it was inspiring. I was learning about the spirit world and enjoying the process, asking questions and practicing meditations. But my own experiences were hollow, fleeting, and deeply lacking in anything I could identify as otherworldly. Something was definitely missing.

Now, all these years later, I know that we were practicing, laying the foundations for our spiritual work. But at that particular time, I was not developing, just practicing techniques, facing my own doubts and challenging perceptions that I had held onto for years.

It took me a very long time to realize that practice and development are very different things. Nobody explained this to me. Nobody told me that practice can create a perceived pause or that it's development that pushes you forward.

Once I understood this, everything started to make sense. I was experiencing the same things over and over. Nothing was really changing, only my desire for more without any sign of real and significant progression.

What Practice Is (And Isn't)

Sitting in the power at home gives you a brilliant foundation where daily practice brings discipline, because the pure act of sitting in stillness is the catalyst for growth. You can also use other mediums to start to understand your own emotional landscape. Journal writing, visualization, and meditation exercises all contribute to self-awareness and personal development, allowing you to reassess and either push or establish boundaries.

What you do alone and the routines you establish absolutely hold enormous value. You can perfect and refine what you already know, and over time you will get better through persistent action. But here is the rub: you are perfecting what you already know, perfecting how you already do it, perfecting but not expanding, not progressing, not developing.

Reading and finding educational content is a good source of information, but be objective in the process. Allow yourself to be inspired, but always remember somebody else's truth can never be your own.

Practice underpins and maintains your foundation, but without development, if you want to be the very best you can be, then you cannot stay in your comfort zone and excel.

What practice gives you:

Practice gives you consistency because routine and repetition build robust foundations. A big part of this is the art of familiarity with your own energy, because without it, you cannot identify what is and isn't yours.

Discipline and the patience to let yourself unfold, not on your timeline but through divine timing. Because Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will your spiritual practice and ascension. To lead a spiritual life is more than dream catchers and love and light. It's the embodiment of your own values and authentic expression of the spirit world.

Practice is more than the act itself. It establishes a personal connection to yourself and to others, because without it you won't be able to express effectively what is trying to be said.

Because when you construct a building on quicksand, it never gets off the ground. True heights are scaled through solid footings.

The limitation:

Practice can give us a limited view. It is not expansive. In fact, in my view there are times when we are striving to achieve something that may not even be for us. We all have different strengths, and spiritual expression can come in different ways.

Without feedback and perspective, we can find ourselves deep into a rabbit hole without knowledge of how to get back to our foundations, especially when practicing alone.

It is said that your comfort zone is a wonderful place to be, but nothing ever grows there. And that is it in a nutshell. Practice holds us, nurtures us, and allows us to build and gain confidence. But the other side of this comfort is the dreaded plateau, the potential that offers more but remains an unreachable goal.

I was nearly a year attending circle, and I had seen progress but certainly nothing that made me feel I was well and truly on my journey. Then I had an amazing experience when I first felt spirit energy blend with my own.

I was sitting with a fellow circle member and I closed my eyes. Gradually I saw an image of a man sitting in a high-backed chair. He was elderly and wore pajamas, and as he just sat there, a woman stepped forward and stood behind the chair where he was sitting. She had her hands on the back of his chair. She then continued to move and came out of my vision. But then, I felt her, a fizzing pop sensation all the way down my right side. I remember saying, "Oh my goodness, I can feel her, this is her," and I was smiling and feeling the lightness of her energy. The very first time I connected.

And from that point forward, I chased the same experience. I searched for it, looked for it in every exercise, every meditation. And it never came to me like that again. I practiced and I practiced. I sat in the same place, with the same person. I waited for the vision, for the sensation. But it never came to me like that again.

Do you know why? Because I was ready for more. I was shown so strongly a spiritual connection, and at that point I knew with certainty that it was true, there really was life after death. But I wanted more of the same.

The thing is, spirit wanted more FOR me, not the same. It wanted me to trust and to know and to be ready for something new. Practice kept me paralyzed in the same place. Practice left me wanting.

I couldn't possibly start from the same place. My experience had taken me past that. It was time to step up, try something new. I had practiced enough with what I had. Now I had uncovered a new and exciting way forward.

What Development Is (The Missing Piece)

Development is so much more than practice. It's advancement and evolution. Working with a mentor or peers in a circle is the environment that moves the needle.

Let me give you an example of what this looks like in practice.

When you're working alone, you might feel an emotion during sitting and think, "This is spirit emotion." But without feedback, you have no way of knowing if you're right or if you're projecting your own unprocessed grief onto the experience.

In circle, with a mentor, you share that experience and they might say, "Tell me about what's happening in your life right now." And suddenly you realise, you've just had a difficult conversation with your mother. That emotion you thought was spirit? It was yours. This is development. This is the correction you cannot get alone.

Or perhaps you're working to give a message on platform, and you say what you're receiving, and your mentor gently redirects: "You're interpreting. Give what you're getting, not what you think it means." That distinction, between receiving and allowing, is something you only learn through feedback, through being wrong, through being gently corrected.

Development also means observing others and learning from their process. You watch someone in circle connect beautifully with spirit, and you see how they do it differently than you. You learn there's no single "right way." You see someone struggle and realize you're not alone in the difficulty. You witness breakthrough moments and understand what patient practice can yield.

The energy in circle is different too. When multiple people sit in the power together, the collective energy creates a reservoir that amplifies your own. What might take you an hour to build alone, you can access in minutes within the circle. This isn't magic, it's the accumulated energy of committed practice in a sacred space.

I am a big believer in understanding things, the way things work. In doing this and understanding what you are experiencing, you gain clarity on what might be happening and where you can be aware of this in future. Feedback which is constructive is the jewel in the crown.

To practice is to be comfortable, but when you have achieved a certain level, it is time to develop into the next one. Development isn't about getting it right. It's about getting it wrong, to try and to fail, to understand and adjust. It's evolution in motion.

When we are learning to work with spirit energy, we are progressing from knowing our own and cultivating the environment for that to thrive, to standing and practicing platform mediumship and one to one readings, the different techniques and nuances.

A mentor will hold you accountable, push you to excel, and give you the tools you need to build capacity in your work and your energy. It's more than just maintaining it.

Development gives you a balanced view. It's your perspective, yes, but it's also others', helping you to see where you cannot and helping you see the fullness of your work.

Pulling you back in when you drift off course, with gentle reminders and support to put you back on track. Development means challenges, but these are challenges that promote and create growth.

Being in circle allows you to observe others, to see what you like and what you don't, to appreciate others' work, to see the complete fullness of the journey. With the beautiful reservoir of energy surrounding you, ascension becomes possible. From spirit and your peers, years of wisdom are there for the taking.

I know that practice takes us to a place where we can progress, but that holds barriers that become hard to break. Development feels hard at first, but this is where the magic happens. Ships are built to sail, not to sit in the harbour.

If you like control, you may find you lean towards the comfort of practice. But if you like progression, development holds the key to your ascension.

Why You Need Both

When I realized that I was holding on as tightly as I could to the success I had found, everything stopped. I became frustrated that what happened before did not happen again in the way I wanted it to. I had shared this experience with other people in circle, and it was a contribution I had not been able to make before. I didn't want to lose the momentum, but that was exactly what happened, and I did it, not the spirit world.

Eventually I had to admit to myself that I was so focused on what had happened, thinking it would only ever be that way, that I had boxed myself into a corner. So I stopped searching for the same experience, and I started to just take myself into the power and wait.

The other thing I realized was that I was starting from a different place. I had knowledge. I had an experience. And so with increased confidence, I waited and committed to sitting daily to see what would happen.

Over a short period of time, everything started to change. I realized that I was still getting the fizzy pop feeling, but not as robust as before. It was more fleeting, but it was there. And spirit had already decided that my next experience would be to feel the energy of my spirit guide.

My mentor saw in me something I could not see in myself. While I was convinced I'd failed, that the connection was lost, she could see that I was further along than when I started. She said, "Dawn, you're not starting from zero. You're starting from experience. Stop trying to recreate what happened and trust what's coming next."

That perspective, that I was further along than I thought, that my starting point had shifted, I could never have seen that alone. I was too close, too frustrated, too focused on what I thought I'd lost. She saw what I couldn't: growth in the midst of what felt like failure.

She encouraged me to continue, to wait, to be consistent, and to build on what I had already achieved. Not to chase the same experience, but to trust that spirit was leading me somewhere new.

Practice maintained what I had already achieved, but my development allowed me to move into the unknown, to sit in uncertainty. Because that one experience led me to wanting this more than I could have ever imagined.

So both practice and development are needed. They are equal partners, supporting the process of unfoldment.

The Modern Spirituality Problem

There is a place for us all on this pathway, and I remain reserved in the timelines of spiritual practice.

Of course I believe that wondrous and spectacular things can and do happen, but I hesitate as to whether they translate to sustainable ability. I did speak about guided meditation in my previous post, and this of course leans towards suggestion. Whoever leads a guided meditation suggests what you should see or feel. Your experience will differ or be similar to another, but this is of course through your own experiences. It is not through the direction of the spirit world, and I know that will be a hard pill to swallow.

I cannot fathom a two day course launching anyone into the working world as a healer. If the same was applied to other professions, such as a surgeon who may well understand the technicalities of an operation, would not have sufficient experience to undertake or shoulder that responsibility.

Which leads me onto certificates without experience or competence. For me, that is a perspective that needs changing. We hold great responsibility in our work. This is not a side show to be mocked but a serious endeavor that the founders fought hard for genuine recognition.

Practice and quick fixes are not development. They are damaging to the Spiritualist movement.

Spirituality is also seen as a salve, as a bypass for self-development. Embodiment of this work, to live a life through understanding and compassion, is a far cry from seeking powers to feel special or a toxic positive culture. Without the inner work, unhealed healers create unhealed students.

If weekend workshops created sustainable healers and mediums, we'd live in communities of outstanding healers and miracles on tap. We don't. Because that's not how real development works.

I have mentioned before that home circles birth genuine mediums, not overnight but over years. Supportive relationships are built on trust and strengthened over a lifetime of learning and growth.

I cannot support weekend warriors because for me, genuine, patient, and humble unfoldment is where my passion lies.

What Real Development Looks Like

I'm going to tell you a realistic truth: there is no timeline to your development. It is a continual learning process, especially where platform mediumship is concerned.

In honesty, I do feel I probably went out as a fledgling too early at 3 years, but what I realized at the time was that after the demonstration, that was the beginning of my learning, not the end.

I realised that I needed that time to understand my work, to continue to refine and learn. And I'm not going to lie, it isn't always easy, but it is absolutely worth it.

I know myself deeply on a level that is unshakable where my work is concerned, and that has not happened overnight.

It has taken me years to build the energetic capacity to work on platform, and it is still a key preparation for all aspects of my work.

I continue to learn and grow, observing and refining, being continually open to change, where I can grow on a human level as well as spiritually.

To allow myself to receive healing regularly, so that I can maintain myself as a clear vessel for communication. I've done this over many years, continual, sustainable learning.

The home circle allowed me to discover a world I had no real comprehension of. New experiences and new people allowed me to unfold. I could take part and discuss what I experienced. I could see that I was not the only one with doubts. I was supported and held at times when I was low on self-esteem, and I was always shown that my potential was there, even when I couldn't see it.

Circle allowed me to believe in myself without ego or the need for popularity. What circle did was show me the door into a very personal journey. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago.

Self-awareness is my friend, but I know that it can be the boring friend to others. No one really wants to do the work, but in all honesty, you cannot skip this part of the journey.

When you hit blocks, go back to self-awareness. When your energy depletes, go back to self-awareness. If you feel a pause, go back to self-awareness. Because it's a split between the two. You cannot bypass the human part of this equation.

How to Know Where You Are

Here are some quick-fire things to think about.

Signs you're practicing (but not developing):

• Same experiences on repeat

• Comfortable but not challenged

• No external feedback or guidance

• Reading/watching but not DOING in community

• Avoiding circle because it feels vulnerable

• Plateau but don't recognize it

  
  

Signs you're developing:

• Consistently challenged and stretched

• Regular feedback (even uncomfortable feedback)

• Working in circle or with mentor

• Experiences deepen and evolve

• Building capacity over time

• Integrating spiritual AND human growth

• Willing to be wrong, to be corrected

  
  

In essence, you must ask yourself some questions and be honest with yourself. If you feel you are at a plateau, then you are most likely practicing. Are you practicing to maintain what you already know, or are you stretching to develop and expand your capacity?

Neither is right or wrong, but they are both valid at different times. Taking a breath and looking at this question honestly will save you a lot of time and disappointment.

Where to Begin

If you are just starting, begin by sitting in stillness and build that up consistently over time. Focus on the foundations first. When you feel ready, reach out to a spiritual mentor.

If you have been practicing alone for a while, ask yourself if you feel you are growing. Are you curious about your experiences and wanting to understand more of what is happening? Take the next natural step to find a circle. And above all, find a circle that understands your values, traditional or not. Be ready to feel a little uncomfortable in the beginning.

If you're avoiding your development, ask yourself why. And it's a good reason to seek a mentor for clarity. If it's a fear of being seen or a fear of being wrong, you're not the first to feel that way. Vulnerability plays an enormous part in development.

If you are ready to move from practice onto genuine development, I invite you to explore my Spiritual Circle Membership, where through traditional Spiritualist principles, patient unfoldment begins. We focus on both spiritual and self-development.

Foundation Circle is a monthly membership for spiritual development and opens January 12th, 2026.

Please go to Join The Natural Unfoldment Circle - Dawn Smith Psychic Medium

It's not a quick fix, not a weekend workshop. It's the long game, if you're willing to play it.

The Long Game

Final truth:

Real development takes time.

There are no shortcuts.

The journey is the point.

Sustainable ability comes from patient unfoldment.

You're not behind, you're right on time.

Practice will maintain you. Development will transform you. You need both.