When you grow through life, you grow through stages. Now it’s easy to measure physical growth. Who hasn’t had someone take out the yard stick, lay it on your head to create a mark on a door frame or wall to measure your growth. At some point the height and weight growth stops…but for some of us (in fact for a lot of us) later in life the weight growth starts again, usually without your permission. But how do you know if you’re really “growing” as a person? Well, there’s are a number of ways.
1. Experiences that used to be difficult become easier.
2. You feel more comfortable in a leadership role.
3. You see yourself as a “kinder, gentler” soul, who is capable of setting boundaries.
4. You find yourself willing to take on new challenges.
5. You see new challenges as an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than an experience that will expose your weaknesses.
6. The qualities or experiences you see in others that used to bother you, no longer impact you anymore.
The things (qualities etc) you see in people that bother you are a reflection of a part of yourself that you have yet to accept or understand. Let that one sink in for a while. The qualities and attributes you admire in another is evidence of talents and atributes that you have. It’s probable you haven’t become aware of their unfoldment into your experiences. Are you starting to see why learning from your experiences is so important. That’s the essences of awareness…aware of what you are experiencing.
Now the good news is that someone who is always acts like a jerk is just reminding you of the few times you act like a jerk. But it’s the jerk in you that sees the jerk in them. The key is to find out why you think that person is a jerk…and start working to “heal” that area within yourself. The more you see how much you have in common with someone, the easier it is to melt the mental barriers you think divide you.
There’s a technique from the Avatar program called “Just Like Me.” You walk through a grocery store and everyone you see you mentally say, “Just like me, that person wants more _______ in his/her life. Happiness, joy, money – whatever you want, just imagine that person is looking for something similar. Notice what you experience.
Let’s say you see a child at the grocery store throwing a tantrum. It bothers you! You become critical of the child, the parent and the whole scene. Your friend sees the same scene and is not even phased by the scene. Why is that? It could be that in your upbringing an outburst in a public place was greeted with looks that stimulated a fear for your well being! In my day, we didn’t have public outbursts or tantrums in our family, not if sitting on a chair anytime soon was important to you! That’s just the way it was.
So when I’d see a kid in the store erupt in one of those “I have to have that” moments, I’d kind of cringe and fear for the kid’s safety. People who were actually allowed to have those tantrums, see another kid throw a tantrum and are not even phased by it. I have a lot more room to grow when it comes to this area of life.
Now, when I could see those tantrums later and not be phased by them I knew I was growing.
I remember once there was another salesman in the company who was making cold calls on the phone. And there was something about the way he called that really bothered me. But I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. He was definitely showing me something about myself that I didn’t enjoy. But I kept working at it until one day I heard myself sounding just like the guy who was irritating me. I was doing the same thing. I figured it out, bingo, just like that. A flash of awareness.
I got off the phone and celebrated – Once I had figured it out, boom it was gone and I felts about 50 lbs lighter. Do you ever have a sudden realization about something and all of a sudden you feel lighter and brighter? It’s like the fog lifting on the highway…you can relax and speed up a little, because your vision has become more clear.
That’s what growing feels like. You’ve moved through the fog of confusion to see things more clearly. You laugh more easily, you smile more often and you day is filled with special moments. That’s when you know you are growing – because you’re becoming more loving, more accepting and a kinder soul. Actually you already are all those qualities – you’re just experiencing them more consistently. Hang with me – you’re on the way to meeting an incredible person – YOU!
Tags: angels, beliefs;, learning from experiences, Life Journey, personal growth, self awareness, Self-Confidence, spiritual growth, Spiritual Help
