Dig deep

I often finish my blog posts with the words “whoever said personal growth was easy”. Today I want to explore this concept a bit further. Some may think that I am being negative in saying this, that when we do something that truly fulfills us everything would be easy, and that we wouldn’t mind discomfort if we are living our dreams. That may or may not be true, but I am talking about the journey.  

So we know that in order to achieve a goal or reach a destination we need to know exactly where we are. But if we talk about personal growth - or transformation - we also need to know exactly who we are. The road past is through it, and for that we need to understand the “self”. I often ask clients to describe themselves, and I’ve come to realise that very few of us truly know and understand who we are. I’m not even at the point of accepting or loving ourselves; I am merely at the point of understanding or connecting. Oh we describe what we do, we describe personality traits, and we are often good at describing who or what we are not, but very few of us can go deep within and connect with our true selves. See, it takes guts to do this. It means we might have to face fears, or shadows of ourselves that we have chosen to hide or bury. It means we might have to get uncomfortable and step out of our known, comfortable world.

I love the topic of freedom – freeing yourself from attachments and thought patterns that are holding you back. But you have to accept that the moment you are “free”, – then you take responsibility. Then there is nothing or no-one to blame! Yes, the road to freedom might take more guts than what we care to admit.

So the first step is to take full responsibility for your own growth. A “journey” like this may at times be hard or uncomfortable. The human mind is conditioned to remember the good times. How many times has something seemed really hard when you were doing it, but afterwards you don’t quite recall how “bad” it was? I used to do long-distance running. Many times whilst I was suffering from fatigue, I would swear NEVER to “do this to myself” again. Yet, soon afterwards – sometimes very soon, I would only remember the euphoria and even though the physical pain and exhaustion would still be very fresh, somehow it would pale and I would only remember the positive. This is because the human mind is created for survival. If we had to remember only the pain, we would rarely exert any real effort. Instinct makes us remember the pleasure or the reward, so we are inclined to repeat it – regardless of the apparent suffering at the time.

The problem is that it is during times of apparent discomfort or when the road gets hard that we give up. When it gets too uncomfortable, when emotions arise that we would rather not face, when there is work to do – facing stuff and changing it. It is easy for life to get in the way of true personal transformation.

True fulfillment is worth it. But be prepared to go all out. Wishy-washy effort is going to get you wishy-washy results. To get the most out of your personal journey, you need to be prepared to dig deep, even if it is uncomfortable. When you peel the onion and peel away layers, your eyes are likely to water. But only during the peeling. It will clear once the onion has been peeled.

Yes, personal growth may not always be easy, but it is so worth it!

Love and light,

Celeste