Much of our personal evolution is a byproduct of circumstance.
By all means, go to the talk, participate in the webinar, and read that great self-help book. No question these opportunities to learn, and to connect, will offer insight and wisdom that help foster our development.
Allowing ourselves to set the pace of our growth, step-by-incremental step.
Each new subject, new insight, and new depth of understanding an indicator, that we are indeed the authors of our change.
The comfort in this pursuit, fostering a false sense of knowing - that we are indeed in control.
Exponential growth forces us to face ourselves. Whether signalled by the loss of a loved one, falling ill, or confronting situations that shattered our concept of reality - this transition is our becoming. When life demands a response. Demands that you push forward, and come to terms with what’s been placed in front of you.
Each disruption brings an earth shattering realization of self.
How self maintains, even when all we identify “self” with, begins to change.
And if the tidal waves of circumstance are violent enough, for long enough, we recognize that self can stand alone. Our identity never required an anchor that was beyond itself. That in fact, identity is incomplete without an explicit articulation of self.
And we find that the self reflected back, through the catalyst of change, is a reflection of our own emptiness.
It is the emptiness that calls for renewal.
It is the void that screams for rebirth.
It is the wisdom within that responds, it is the thirst for survival that forces us to take each step forward. Often without words, without knowing, or thinking, about where these steps will eventually lead.
We do not call this growth.
This loss of self is called anything but growth.
The rise from the ashes, often overshadowed by the trauma, grief, and devastation that preceded it.
The moments that do not call for us to look forward, but to look within.
See this version of self that is coming to bloom, the hidden aspects of self that though remained undetected, we somehow have always been.
The call for growth is often masked as challenge, disruption, and change. Circumstances we couldn’t have expected, could not have anticipated, and wouldn’t have chosen. Responding forces a shift, and a transformation, that we often fail to see as evolution. In the ways we support ourselves through the transition.
Life demands that we rise to the occasion.
Demands for growth in all that we didn’t see coming.
There is a message in loss, and that is that we can go on, without.
Whatever was taken, life demands we move forward, without.
That we make room for the new.
Make room for the relationships and circumstances that will surely find you. The people, places, and circumstances, your destiny, your calling, that are waiting for you.
They will meet you in the chasm between today and yesterday, welcoming you into tomorrow.
Loss is the sacrifice for this becoming, for each rebirth that we will inevitably experience.
This call for growth, that makes the choice of what, and whom, will and won’t serve.
In this next chapter.
And while the avoidance of pain is understood...
It is from pushing through the pain, the sorrow, doubt, and fear that will bring about the growth that a talk on development never could.