On growth feeling like a never ending process that is taking you nowhere….

Read on, lovelies!

On growth feeling like a never ending process that is taking you nowhere….

Read on, lovelies!

Growth is a funny thing.  I always feel like it happens when we go and when we do.  I look at the word:

GROWTH

and I see a “G”

and I see an “O”

GO

Grow and go. Somehow synonymous.

I’ve been brought up in a culture of growth. My father growing his business. My mother growing in grace. For a season I even worked for a company that held conferences and sold products all related to personal growth.

Growth, for me, has always been proactive.

Yet my experience with true growth looks a lot more like sitting still and staying put.

Not doing a work,

but letting a work be done in me.

Did you know that definition of proactive is this? :

controlling a situation by making things happen or by preparing for possible future problems

What I’m learning is that most growth comes when everything is completely out of my control.

When I’ve lost all control.

When I relinquish control.

When I long for a quick change, but begin to accept that true change takes a slow long time.

When no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to make noticeable progress.

When it appears like my circumstances will never change, yet I hold onto hope for a good and bright future.

Have you been there? Trying to change, instead of letting change change you.

I’m not telling you to sit still, to be inactive. Although maybe I am. Because only you know the route your growth should take.

For the caterpillar growth happens in a cocoon.

For the seed growth happens underground.

For both, it’s growth that has brought change. Not just a change but total change.

Metamorphosis.

From caterpillar to butterfly.

From seed to tree.

And it is this kind of change that brings movement.

For a butterfly can not stay wound up, forever, in the silk it’s old self weaved. It wings will flutter and force it to fly.

The seed sprouts roots that ground and sustain it. It’s held still so that it can move. There is a deepness that grounds the tree before it pushes through the soil and waves in the wind. It moves but it is grounded.

Maybe we are trying to do and go and move before our roots have grown deep?

Perhaps we are trying to fly before we have wings?

I have tried. I have tired myself trying.

Could it be that in the rest, in the stillness, in the going no-where we are growing and going deep? We are changing. We are becoming. We are transforming.

It’s an ugly process. Buried in dirt and breaking. Shedding old skin in isolation and what looks like suffocation.

But what emerges is beauty. What emerges is strength.

This process is not for the faint of heart or the hurried. And it’s just that– a process. A process that feels as if it might never end or eat you alive.

I’m staying put. Not fighting the rest. Letting the process produce. Letting growth move me instead of me trying to fly before I have wings.

I see glimpses of the light above. Beyond the soil, outside the cocoon. The sun is shining. The breeze is blowing. The metamorphosis soon complete. The roots run deep and hold us steady. The wings set us free to fly.

That is all growth ever wanted. Not for us to suffocate or never to see light. But for us to be grounded and free at the same time.

 

Are you in an underground, cocoon like process?

What does that look like for you? 

For me, it looks like a lot of days on repeat. Reading some of the same things over and over again. Writing out my thoughts and the lessons I’m learning. Talking with friends. Praying that the process changes me. Praying for strength. Trusting. Hoping. More hoping. More trusting. Relinquishing control. Letting go. Letting God. More trust. More hope. More praying. Sitting still. Listening. Forgiving. And, doing it all over again. Growth can look a lot like Groundhogs Day.