Remember getting leg cramps as a kid, and then a week later your pants were too short for you and your pencil mark on the door frame was an inch higher already?
Growing pains happen spiritually too. We expand ourselves, and everything around us had to adjust to the new state of being. It can be uncomfortable, or worse. We can lose people from our lives who no longer fit with us. We gain momentum and certain trappings of our former lives fall away. We lose stability, we lose the familiar, we lose security, until it is established in a new way.
--When have you experienced discomfort while growing, maturing, evolving, awakening, in transition, etc? How did you work through it?
Let's look at a common stages of change model :
1. Pre-contemplation, (you're unaware that there's a problem, you don't realize change is an option, or don't think about change as necessary)
2. Contemplation, (you know something needs to change, but have to work it out somehow, think it through, or accept that it's needed or helpful.)
3. Preparation, (you are making plans to change, setting up the right situation to be successful)
4. Action, (you are following steps that will help you change and accessing the support you need)
5. Relapse, (you return to a previous phase of change, and this can happen at any stage of change, and can repeat for longer or shorter periods.)
6. Maintenance, (you continue to take action and make progress)
7. Termination/graduation. (it is no longer necessary to be so intentional and focused, the new habit is solid)
--Any of these stages of personal growth can cause pain or agitation! What phases of unfolding have you identified in your life that fit this pattern? Have you ever relapsed? Have you ever graduated from the process by being "done" with something you used to be involved in?
*** Types of Relapses - falling into old patterns
Cyclical Relapses - When we haven't mastered the lessons of our lives and need to review them, situations come back to us time and again, with different faces or different circumstances, but always the same type of emotion or reaction happens within us in the varying contexts. We need to learn how to deal with these reoccurring patterns, because they get more and more overwhelming if we continue to deal with them in the same unhelpful ways.
Intentional Relapses - When we let something internal such as unhelpful emotion, thought or sensation dictate our behaviour. Sometimes we use these as an actual excuse, other times it's just implied that we were overwhelmed by our experience. The difference here is that we choose to put ourselves in the situation, rather than something external interfering with us.
-- Relapse can mean returning to an addiction or habit, but it can also mean dropping out of a class or course, or letting the to-do-list grow out of control. It depends what new pattern you are trying to create for yourself. When have you relapsed and what was that like? How did it feel before you relapsed, how did it feel during the relapse? And What did you do afterward?
*** Types of Resistance - What happens when we aren't fully committed to moving forward?
Resistance to Change - There are abrasive changes - a spiritual 'road rash' when the path pulls you forward and you don't feel ready. This stuff is like being dragged kicking and screaming through hot sand into water which looks freezing cold but then once you're soaked, you might realize it's actually pretty temperate.
Obstacles - Some roadblocks appear on the path due to skills needed later in that path - like in a video game where you have to learn to out-maneuver the boss by learning how his henchmen fight... sometimes we have to encounter obstacles that help us gain prowess for a bigger roadblock down the road. It can be frustrating.
Procrastination agitation - This is when anxiety shows up as resistance to success, which can leave you restless and bored, and without direction.
Distractions - When we are being tested around our focus and dedication, we can have appealing options pop up that might give instant gratification, but don't ultimately serve our greater goal, and then, straying from our path, it's harder to find our footing again. and we can feel guilt and shame over transgressions.
-- What does resistance feel like to you? Does it ever get overwhelming? How do you overcome it?
*** Types of Rites of Passage - meant to take you out of your element and awaken a new way of life or new stage of life for you.
Initiations - informal or formal, initiations by spirit and circumstance or by clergy in ritual/ceremony, hazings that build group solidarity upon entering a group/tradition.
Healer's illnesses - deathly illnesses that build a wounded healer - psychic surgeries, visions and voices from fever or psychosis, sometimes accidents or injuries that leave the aspirant immobilized in some way, or shaman sickness, or kundalini syndrome, really anything that brings someone to a near death experience or else a dark night of the soul, from which they are granted gifts like healing abilities or seeing abilities, or otherwise reborn a new person.
Deprogramming - the opposite of brainwashing, this clears all the gunk of misinformation that's been learned over time from the person's previous cultural indoctrinations, for example, one might learn that actually, supermodels are that thin because they are sick with an eating disorder, not because ultra thin is normal. and that one's own body image is perceived differently by every observer.
Culture shock - after having made up some expectations of what people are like in another culture.... and been exposed to it and seen the reality.... coming home to one's own culture can be shocking because you have new eyes to see what it's really like comparatively.
-- Have you ever gone through a transformative experience that changed your life? Was it easy? Was it what you expected? Do you think you were prepared enough for it? Was it something that you chose to engage in, or did it happen to you? Does that make a big difference, in your opinion, in how the change takes hold?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences around these topics of self growth and the pains and complications that arise in our lives while we evolve and awaken.
♥ Jacki