The Rider’s Mind Podcast Episode 137: Growing Pains
Those of us on a personal growth journey, a journey to a more mindful life, to better health and wellness know it’s not an easy road. There is work that needs to be done and it does not always feel easy. Sometimes we may end up questioning why we’re doing this. It was just easier to live in our heads. Ignorance was bliss. It was easier to not know, and this journey of self growth can come with its challenges. It comes with its hills, it comes with its valleys, and I want to talk about those valleys today. And hopefully, if you are in a valley, this will give you some inspiration, to have some grace with yourself and to have patience as you work through and you wait for your opportunity to take action when the time is right to move to the next level.
You’re getting this episode hot off the press. Usually I’m a week, 2-3 weeks ahead in recording the episodes, but today, because I have been busy with family stuff and then the Josh Nichol clinic that I hosted at my place, recording this just the Tuesday before the Thursday release. And I know a few people have mentioned that they couldn’t wait to hear what I had to say about the clinic, the Josh Nichol Clinic that hosted, and I had thought about recording a podcast and I still might, about what I got from it, what I learned. But at this point I’m actually still integrating everything. I feel like I’m still picking my brains off the floor from everything that kind of exploded. That maybe was not a very nice graphic image, but I’m feeling like it was an intense work out of my heart and soul and there’s been a lot of shifts and changes. All good, all excited, exciting, and I hope that I’ll be able to share more with you. But today I want to talk about growing pains and personal growth, and I will say I was definitely in a lull, a valley for probably one of the longest periods that I can remember, not that long ago, just like in the last month, and I felt before, well, just at the beginning of June, that things were changing, things were shifting and then, with this clinic, things kind of really unfolded for me and right now I feel like I’m coming out of this valley of growth and integrating and going to be turning all of this excitement and new alignments, like my cells, are realigning themselves into something that I don’t see what it is yet, but I just know that it feels a lot more positive than it was.
And so I just want to talk about these valleys, these growing pains that we can experience, because sometimes, when we’re in the field of personal growth and will, is safe to assume that if you’re listening to my podcast, you’re into personal growth, if you have any kind of self-awareness if you’re working on becoming more authentic, if you are working on taking personal responsibility for how you’re showing up, if you’re doing healing from Trauma, whether it’s a accumulation of small dramas or big dramas, if you’re working on shadow work, the things that you don’t love about yourself or things that you love doing self-love work, learning more about nervous system regulation, improving your health wellness, becoming more conscious, becoming more mindful, all of these things that these are an area of work and study for you. It can feel awfully hard at times, and I’m not one to make things hard, as you know, I don’t like deciding that, but it can feel horrible, it can feel heavy, it can feel depressing, it can feel anxious. It can feel just really icky through these cycles of growth that we can go through, and there’s lots of times when I ask myself why did I open this can of worms? You know ignorance was bliss, not working towards personal achievement or being my best self. It’s a lot easier not to do that, but it’s also not as fulfilling as growing is.
It doesn’t feel as good. Feel as light when you can truly show up in an authentic way, where you can find your presence and be most mindful, where you can connect through your horses, through this work that you’ve been doing and you can see their appreciation that they’re doing. It really is fulfilling, but it can feel awfully uncomfortable. It can feel hard, painful, unfamiliar, it can feel dark, you know we can say that this is part of the valley of our hills and valleys, our highs and lows, when we’re in a valley. But sometimes it feels like we’re in a dark cave, all alone and there’s no way out. So I’ve been there and I recognize that.
But I do want to tell you that sometimes these pain periods are set up for a great stage of growth. Often they are. Sometimes these pain periods are longer than others. It might be just four days of the month, it might be an entire month, this last cycle. For me it did not follow any kind of cycle and it was longer than usual for me, and I was actually getting kind of concerned about it. But what have we started thinking about this, this time period that we’re in? What if it’s meant to prepare us to rest and gather for a huge period of growth that is about to come?
And what if it was longer and it was harder to be in this uncomfortable feeling of this growth period because it meant that we had a huge ascension coming, that we would be raised, rising to greater heights because of the level of difficulty. Now i’m not saying that the level of difficulty of the pain periods that you might be in the pain part that you’re going to be in. I don’t think that there is a necessary correlation here, but I’ve noticed, and it’s been my experience, that that is definitely a possibility, and having come out of a period like that, I would say that some of my best advice that I could give you is to give you give yourself grace during this time to rest, to not try and make things happen, because then you’re just coming up against resistance and that doesn’t always feel good either, giving yourself space with this grace and also a large amount of patience, patience to know that you don’t know when you’re going to get through this, but that your track record has proven that you’ve always been through these harder times, these harder periods, and you will continue to get through them.
I think there is this type of polarity in growth. You know like that, the going to take with the bad with the good or the good with the bad. It all goes together. I don’t like to say that growth has to be hard, but part of it can be hard and this polarity in the grove I feel like if it swings one way and it’s superhard, it’s going to be a long way back, a long journey back to this greatness. But when it does it swings even further into height, into the higher heights, into a greater energy and frequency and elevation, and then you don’t always come back down. As far as you went in, this growth and this ascension and growth were moving up a kind of like a spiral staircase, going up up up, and sometimes you come around to the same things and you’re able to heel at a deeper level because you’ve already healed at the certain surface level and then the next time that you come around with it, you can go, you can go deeper. Sometimes healing can be fun, growing, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It can be fun. I mean I grew through experiencing disney world, pushing myself out of my comfort zone. There was growth in that and it was a lot of fun. So I don’t want to always say that it is hard, but sometimes it just really doesn’t feel great. You know, leaving your shadows, breaking down your boxes and all telling, recognizing the stories that you’re telling, recognizing that you’ve been the one holding yourself back. We’ve held on for so long to these stories. It’s uncomfortable to let it go to recognize that we’re not who we thought we were or we’re not who we were, who the story was that we were telling about ourselves, whenever we’re choosing to be believe, whenever we’re choosing to be authentic, whenever you choose yourself, you’re often moving away from others that don’t line with you and this new you that you’re working on creating. This is not easy. It’s not going to feel like a slice of cake, it’s just, It’s not easy to do that, but it is worth it. Living in an identity that no longer aligns with who you are or doing things that you’ve always done just because you’ve done them, but they’re actually keeping you from being who you want to be and doing the things that you want to do and living the life you want to do well is not worth staying in those, but it’s it’s still hard to move away.
It’s just worth it navigating these heavy spaces. It’s like unfamiliar waters, but you do have to have faith. I would say you know another point of advice would be to take faith in a higher power, to have faith in yourself, that you’ve always made it through these hard times and that you will do it again. You wouldn’t have the vision if you didn’t have the support behind you energetically to move through and do these things. You may not be able to see the other side, yet. You may feel like you’re in the deep waters and you do not see the shore yet, but it will appear and when it does appear you will, you will see it. But then you know that you still have to swim to that. Sure there’s still things that you need to do to realize and to get there once. But I feel like for myself right now, coming out of a valley. I don’t have all the pieces together. I don’t have the…. Yes, this is what this was all for. Yes, this was all really worth it and I see it all now.
But when you see the shore, that’s when you start taking action on the things that come before you, the inspired action that will help get you to that shore. Instead of, you know, just throwing up your arms and saying I’m done, this is, this is too hard. This isn’t fun. Still have to have the tenacity and the will power and the motivation, the determination to get to the other side. Once you see the shore and once you get there, you may have a greater understanding. It may be clear, you might have seen how it all worked together, or maybe you don’t but that doesn’t mean that you don’t keep following your feel as to what feels right and what lights you up and recognize that through these hard, hard periods of growth, that there is light on the other side and it is worth it.
Sometimes these periods of growth are longer than others and just remember to give yourself grace and space rest if you can move through these uncomfortable feelings, because for many of us rest isn’t actually easy. But have patience and don’t really recommend that you don’t try to start making things happen. You do have to take action on certain things that come up for you as an opportunity but have personal compassion for yourself, have grace for yourself, patience in these times and just recognize that you know it might be taking a little bit longer because something great is on the other side and I actually have to thank my friend Cristy for this advice when I was feeling like it was a heavy spot and she reminded me that it’s possible that there might be greatness on the other side of this that I had never seen before and I agree. I’m excited to see where I’m going as I’m moving out of this personal valley of my own and I look forward to sharing more about this. But for now I just wanted to share that this work that you’re doing, It’s not easy, it’s not a piece of cake. I don’t think we need to focus on how hard it is, but just recognize that sometimes we do have to be patient, patient in this space of personal growth and on this journey that we’re on here together to become our best selves. I hope this has been helpful. Remember to breathe deep, stay present and ride the stride through this journey of life that we are on together.
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