The process of growth

The process of growth for me. I feel like I was doing so well, but I don't know what happened.

Growth is a process, and I felt like I was cruising in the right direction, so I decided to just let off a little. Lean back and try to enjoy the person I had grown into. But then life happens. Family events show up. I become triggered. I get sad. And then it feels like all of the work I have done in the past is gone and I am exactly as I was before.

But I know that's not entirely true. The work I have done in the past is still there, it maybe just needs to be re-visited. A refresher of who I want to be and a reminder of the person that I am. I have changed a lot and have grown, but the person that I used to be, the trails in my brain that were formed during all my years of life so far, cannot just be changed in an instant. In my divorce care group, we were told that growth looks like taking two steps forward and then one step back. I am finding myself taking a step back. And that is hard. It can be discouraging and annoying. In my head I hear myself say "I have already worked on this. Why isn't it just fixed? I thought I already did this work." But the paths that created me to be who I am didn't happen overnight, and changing those paths also can't happen overnight.

When I am finding myself in the step backwards of growth, I am learning to have self-compassion towards myself. I think I can be so hard on myself, and in turn, start being hard on those around me. I think back to the person that I used to be and ask myself, what does she need? What would you want to say to her? I think I would want to say to her that you're doing okay. What matters is that you like who you are. Do you like you? I need to remind myself that I am kind, I am funny, and that I am a good friend. I think that I have so many good qualities.

When I start caring more about how other people see me or start worrying about if others like me, I lose sight of myself. This keeps happening. I become so unsure of who I am and what I like that I don't even like myself. Losing me is so much worse than losing someone else, I think. Why is that so hard to remember? Seriously, I feel like lately I have to remind myself of who I am again and again just to make it through the day. I think I was feeling so good about myself, feeling so good about who I was and how I was showing up for myself and how I was showing up for others, but that can change so quickly. I didn't even know it was happening. I just found myself reverting back into someone who I don't want to be.

What can I do about that? What do I need to keep or discard in my life to make sure that I am staying true to me and who I want to be and the life that I want to lead?

I think that I have just been neglecting myself. I can get so caught up in thinking about others first that I lose sight of what adds value to my life and what keeps me uplifted so that I can show up better for others. Because if I am feeling down about myself, I will show up different for others. If I am being critical of myself, I am pulling myself down, I am being critical of me, then I am going to bring her with when I interact with others. But if I am lifting myself up, encouraging her, ect, then I can show up as her and do that for others too.

Part of the growth process for me is dealing with frustrations around coming back to the same thing again and again. I am me and I continue to have the same issues to work on and problems to deal with. Maybe I get better at dealing with them, but at the end of the day the main issues in my life may be ongoing because it is the same deep rooted issues that keep m stuck.

I wish growth was like a one and done thing. I have this issue, this is how I deal with it, and now it's fixed! But that's not real life, and different events trigger different memories, and different emotions come up and I have to sort out where they are from. The motivation for me to keep going is that I see myself being a different person. I see myself getting better and showing up in a way that I am proud of. I think sometimes I get scared that one day I will wake up and be exactly as I was in the past, but so far, I'm not. So far, I continue to grow and see progress in a direction that I am proud of. But even writing this out is a good reminder for myself because I am so quick to forget it. I am so quick to doubt myself and question how I am doing or if I am doing the "right" thing. Maybe when it comes to being yourself, there is no one right way. Only you know what is authentic to you and you are the only one to truly be able to hold you accountible to showing up in this world as yourself.