Growth Spurt

They tell me that many kids go through growth spurts and shoot up a few inches in just two or three months.  Actually, I remember seeing that in one of my nephews over a summer.  Me? I was the tallest kid in my class until fifth grade; then I stopped growing...completely. At least physically, that it.  In adulthood, I am the size of a tall fifth grade, which is to say a pretty short grown up.

We grow in different ways, though, and in some ways I've never stopped growing.  I like to believe that emotionally and spiritually I continue to grow.  There have been years when it felt like I'd have a major Aha! moment at least every week.  I've been in a growth dry spell for a while.  You might say I've been stuck.

For several months, I've been feeling like something was coming.  On November 2 last year, I wrote about "feeling pregnant," about to give birth to something.  I've kept feeling that something positive was about to come my way over the months. Waiting...waiting...but nothing yet.

Over the last two weeks I've started into a growth spurt.  (I'd love to be taller, but I think I will have to be happy with spiritual growth.) As I've stepped out in new ways, the Universe has been very affirming.  I got into the class I'd been on a waiting list for, and it ends up that it is going to approach leadership from the perspective of personal growth, something I wrote about in Leading from the Heart and The Alchemy of Fear.

As I've done pre-work assessments, I've realized how I've shrunk personally over the five years I've been in my current job; I've significantly lost confidence in myself.  Dumbing down on a daily basis has really undermined not only my potential, but also how I show up each day.  As I've written over the last few days, discovering that I don't advocate for myself and that I have boundary issues has been a major breakthrough as well.  A continuing education class for certified coaches also helped me rediscover aspects that I'd forgotten were part of me.

I've climbed out of the rut, and I am back in the growth groove.  YEAH!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I am taking an all-day class that I also expect to be revealing, and then the next five days, I'll be in the personal growth class.  I am not only in a new groove, but odds are on that I am about to go from zero to sixty very quickly.

I love to grow.  I love to discover new things about myself.  For a long time, I've thought that our personal growth follows the cycle of nature.  In the fall seeds of who we might become drop, rest in the soil, and in spring they sprout.  By this time of the year, it is harvest, and we are ready to drop seeds for another cycle of growth. 

I usually recognize the beginning of the cycle around the Jewish New Year, which is coming in about three weeks.  Although I am not Jewish, over those holidays I usually take a few days to sit and reflect about the year past, what seeds have sprouted and matured, and what seeds I want to plant for the year ahead.

It was at that time last year, that I committed to writing more, and I have written regularly in this blog since that time. I  have also written several chapters of my memoir, and I am very, very close (I hope) to having The Game Called Life on Amazon.  There were other things that I wanted to bring into my life--more of the work I used to love doing, including coaching, and a new job with better pay and more importantly, a more respectful work environment. Some of those things have happened, and seeds have been planted for others.  I'd also knew I wanted a personal relationship. 

The truth about some of those things which haven't happened yet is that I haven't been ready.  In synch with the cycle of nature, I believe this growth spurt is what I've needed to get me ready.  There's an expression: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."  As nature has approached the harvest, this student has gotten more and more ready, and suddenly teachers have appeared from every direction. 

The nature of spiritual growth spurts is that we can't really know from this side what things will look like on the other, but what we can be assured is that a whole new world of possibilities will await us. 
What it will look like, I cannot know now, but I am confident that a rich harvest awaits everywhere in my life that I've planted seeds.