Growth

Growth is a funny thing. Everything must grow. Whatever Life is, and when I say Life I mean that which animates you and me and causes the flowers to stand up straight and be bright, must grow by its own nature. That which does not grow, does not live. Change is constant because growth is constant.

However, we have all had experiences where we did not welcome this inevitable change. We resisted, which almost always resulted in pain. We held on to the old us with all our might, forcing life to tug all the more harder. Why did we do this? Why is it that as positive as growth sounds, sometimes it feels negative?

Growth is our adoration for a particular lover getting stronger and stronger by the day which of course feels great! On the other hand, leaving that same lover a while later for whatever reason is growth too and can be so hard sometimes that people have put it off for weeks, months, years or even their whole life. Anyone who has done this was basically willing to endure the slow, dull pain of being in a bad relationship rather than taking a big gulp all at once like with a breakup.

Every day we have many, many instances where we resist growth. The trick is being aware of them. Sometimes we get caught up in the details and circumstances of the situation and in these cases we have forgotten the truth; that we are just growing. Simply being more aware that the seemingly negative situations in our lives are really gifts and are usually our biggest growth points can make all the difference. This shift can instantly turn a hostile universe into a friendly one.

A great question to ask ourselves when we are having a negative experience is, "What can I learn from this?" A question like this can quickly shift the experience away from "someone did this to me and it sucks" and into "this just happened and here's what I learned from it". This essentially shifts the experience from the negative end of the pole to the positive end.

Resistance doesn't help. We can take a cue from mother nature on this point . Can you imagine a tree holing on to its leaves in autumn; afraid that those were the last leaves it would ever have? How absurd? Growth is simply letting go of the old us so that the new us can become.

Growth is definitely a funny thing. I'm grateful for its constancy. And, I'm grateful for this approach that I have shared. I've noticed in using it that the positive growth points are more and more frequent. That's because when it comes to Life, our approach is 100% of the game.