#246: "I have everything I need"
What next for personal development when you've done a lot of digging?
I’ve been on the personal development train for nearly 10 years.
When I began struggling with my mental health, I uncovered a whole world of wellbeing and healing that I was unaware of.
I dived into meditation, journaling, yoga, therapy, coaching, group coaching, floatation tanks, time in nature, long solo walks and anything else I could try.
I’ve been on retreats, I’ve worked with different styles of coaches and therapists, I’ve been part of communities where I’ve connected with individuals in deep and intimate ways.
And still, a world of wellbeing, development, growth and healing practices await.
There’s more I could do.
I noticed recently how I was searching for the next thing, for the next area of growth. What else can I uncover? Where is there more trauma to heal?! I must grow. I must do more personal development.
I’ve felt a turning in me. I want to continue to explore myself and how I relate to the world, I never want to stop that.
Yet, the way in which I do that, I would like to change.
I don’t want to keep trying to find stuff to talk about, as if I’m analysing the next part that’s broken in me.
I don’t want to keep churning myself up by digging within.
I don’t want to keep forcing myself to “find my growing edge”.
I recently pondered: “What would I find harder?”
“A 50 minute therapy session discussing my feelings, emotions, anxieties and how they might relate to my past experiences.”
“A 50 minute meditation. Sitting in silence, eyes open, focusing on my breath and the space in the world around me.”
Almost certainly, the meditation. That terrifies me. I can talk, no problem, I can even pretend to be vulnerable (I’ve got really good at that). Yet sitting in silence, with just my thoughts and sensations, that’s hard. There’s nowhere to hide.
The irony, of course, is that I do want to find my next “edge” and I’m ready to grow again. Yet how I find it, that feels different. I don’t want to search, I want it to come to me.
On a deep level, I have a feeling. I have a feeling that my next level of growth and development isn’t seeking something to explore. It’s truly feeling comfortable within. Believing, that I have everything I need. Believing, that I don’t need “to do more”.
I feel drawn to practices of stillness, those that involve only me. Sitting in silence, being, just being.
Practices like this could enforce what I’d like to strengthen within me. I don’t need to go looking elsewhere. I have the answers to my questions. I can support myself. I’m capable of anything.
I wonder if I had been “working on myself” from a place of fear and scarcity. Was I believing that I don’t have enough, that I’m not good enough? So I must go to more therapy. I must attend more coaching. I must do more meditation. I must do more journaling.
I wonder how I’d look at “personal development” (would I even call it that?) If my default setting is “I have everything I need”, “I have enough”
What then? What practices would maintain and re-enforce that state?
What does working on myself look like if I believe I have nothing to work on?
What does growth look like if I believe I am enough?
Where next? When there’s nowhere to go.
🔥
"What does working on myself look like if I believe I have nothing to work on?
What does growth look like if I believe I am enough?
Where next? When there’s nowhere to go."
Very profound and I wish I had the answer. The only thing I can say it that, for me, personal development and growth is more about learning that not feeling like I'm enough.