Growth is uncomfortable. 

It’s facing your triggers and hoping for a better future.

Growth scares me. Hoping for a better future feels wrong to me. It feels wrong to want something because I’ve never gotten what I want. 

Growth is accepting that I deserve the better future that I want. It’s easy to believe the lies I tell myself. That allowing myself to be happy is wrong, that something will happen to ruin it, that I don’t deserve it. It’s hard to look in the mirror and face reality. To tell yourself that something you’ve never gotten is going to happen for you.

It’s easy to be the person that ruins it for yourself. 

I learned from a young age that the things I wanted were out of my reach. I bought the lie that I couldn’t change my life and find what I was missing all these years. But it’s just a lie. Humans love to lie to themselves to rationalize the world they live in.

Pulling back the curtain and seeing the world as it is is a hard thing to do. It’s easy to allow fear to take over and shape your reality. I let it for years and I still do sometimes. It’s a hard thing to break out of.

Growth is seeing what I know now and what I used to. Growth is making different choices, no matter how weird it feels. Now I’m only comparing myself to older versions of myself. Who I was last year or even just a few months ago isn’t who I am now. I’m changing and shifting. I’m seeing the healing in action now. I’m pushing myself toward what I want instead of hiding because of the potential hurt. 

Growth doesn’t happen overnight but one day you wake up and what once bothered you no longer does. The weight is off your shoulders and you can take a deep breath and walk in the sunshine and realize you are more than what you’ve been through. You are everything you once were and so much more.

The main thing I learned these last several months is that you should take the past with you and not stay in it. Our pasts are important in shaping the people we are today. It’s important to remember that our pasts don’t taint us, they create us. 

My therapist helped me reveal something recently and it’s that I was still looking at my past in shame because I thought others could hold it against me. No one can hold something I’m not ashamed of against me, but my fear of vulnerability was proof I was still ashamed.

Growth isn’t an end goal, it’s a process. I thought I was healed but realized I was still in progress. But being in progress is better than being stagnant. Moving forward and moving through is the only way to grow. 

I won’t lie, it feels horrible sometimes because changing learned behavior is so deeply uncomfortable. But I know that this discomfort will take me where I want to be. Every day I get closer, every day I feel lighter, and every day I get better. Sometimes the progress takes a pause and I have to choose to be understanding. I have to choose to not get upset with myself for not being where I want to be. I have to feel the anxiety to let it go. I have to keep choosing the person that I want to be. 

Currently Consuming

Reading

• A textbook chapter on AI in marketing…

Watching

• The Perfect Couple on Netflix, I was in need of a suspenseful drama

• Also started Tell Me Lies on Hulu

Listening

• Believe by Shawn Mendes on repeaaaat this week and been in a Sara Bareilles era

My notes app this week

 Song lyrics that resonated with me

“Your history of silence won’t do you any good” - Sara Bareilles, Brave

“Anything could happen” - Ellie Goulding, Anything Could Happen

“I made it to September, I can finally breathe” - Maisie Peters, There It Goes

“But I just couldn’t wait, took a leap of faith” - Sabrina Carpenter, Can’t Blame a Girl for Trying

“And I’m still dancing at the end of the day” - Maggie Rogers, Light On

“Never been less empty, all I feel is free now” - Gracie Abrams, Free Now

See ya! 

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week!

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