PERSONAL GROWTH
It Came to Serve Me By April Diane
Personal growth is an emotional journey. A journey that begs the question, will you stay, or will you allow yourself to grow? A journey of discovering how to respond to the challenges you face differently, possibly with a more positive outlook. When you choose to rise to the challenges personal growth offers, by way of making a mess out of your comfort zone, the obstacles serve you up hefty doses of strength, courage, and wisdom; and you are forever changed. Your reality begins to transform, bringing the unconscious to your awareness, helping you identify weeds for the distractions they are, and positioning you to plant new seeds intentionally in the garden of your life, with determination and resilience. Emotion, coupled with fear initially, may urge you to resist growth. Circumstances arise that require you to sit with yourself grappling with choices you’ve made in the past with the hopes of making informed decisions about how to proceed to obtain a new outcome for the future. An internal struggle commences. However, when the call comes, you can’t resist. The feelings consume you as if you have been convicted by your soul, who refuses to be ignored. Around every corner, in every encounter, you connect with reminders to face your fears and do the work it takes to go within and sit with yourself to uncover your deepest thoughts, beliefs, desires, and feelings. No longer can you get by doing the same old things, hanging out in the same circles of people, practicing the same unhealthy habits, falling victim to being undisciplined. When the calling to grow enters your life at different moments on the journey, sometimes you are knee-deep in shit, and sometimes we get a gentle nudge to make a new choice. In times like these, you find yourself uncomfortable with familiar chaotic circumstances, and as a result, you propel to take a step in a new direction. You leave behind your comfort zone, faced with the challenge of change. Challenges come to serve us positively, and discovering how that is possible when things seem to be a complete mess is the transformative part of the journey. How can I learn to love myself when my internal messages have been filled with self-hate for so long? How can I have a healthy relationship when I haven’t had great examples of healthy relationships around me? How can I practice new beliefs when the old beliefs are so deeply embedded in my culture? How can I follow my dreams when no one ever believed in my ideas?
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