Growing

What do you define as growth? Some people see growth as finally being able to buy a car or overcoming negative habits, some may see growth as a spiritual process that happens over years and we never stop growing. As children, we often excitedly tracked our physical growth by getting our parents to mark on door frames how tall we had grown every couple of months. Whether a child or an adult, our ideas about growing change with time, we go from seeing it as physical to seeing it as mental, emotional and spiritual. Personally I would define it as postive change in your life.

I have always been an introspective person. Even as a kid I would contemplate things around me and ask myself questions that I often couldn’t get the answers to. My personal growth really started when I was 15, I began to learn about Buddhism and meditation. Technically, this is when I started developing my spiritual growth but learning these practices made me change in other areas of my life not just spiritually. I grew to be more aware and mindful. During this time I was still an immature teenager but I knew that I had sown seeds and changes were taking place.

In spite of this, I remember being around 18 or 19 and feeling as though I had hit the peak of maturity and sensibility. I was in college, working part time in a supermarket, going out to parties and clubs every weekend. I felt like a grown up and, by law I could do ‘grown up’ things but I look back at that time and realise that I still had so much growing to do.

Fast forward a few years into my twenties, and I look at the concept of growth completely differently. It’s something I observe almost everyday. Last year, the lockdowns forced us to look within ourselves and confront our issues internally. I feel that I have experienced the most growth in the past year and especially this year because I had more time to sit with myself. I began to see other people’s perspectives clearer, especially when dealing with past conflicts or disagreements. I became more level headed about situations I went through and less likely to freak out and let my emotions cloud my judgement. Some days are still harder than others, whenever something positive happens in my life I still automatically tell myself that it's too good to be true and I don't deserve it. I learnt to stop these negative thought processes whenever I can, by being aware of them and telling myself nicer thoughts instead. Making the effort to try and block these negative thought spirals has been a game changer for me and has made me realise how far I have come in my personal growth.

I take comfort in knowing that I still don’t have it all figured out. I feel like that's what makes my journey exciting, because I know there's still more lessons to be learnt and more change to take place. Even at my most overwhelmed, distressed and anxious states, somehow I'm able to tell myself that I'll be okay at some point. I can always bring myself back down to earth by telling myself: “look how far you’ve come, that’s growth”. We should all remind ourselves of how much we have grown over the years, months or even days. Always appreciate the changes you go through and the growth that is yet to come.