You can read all the books, take the courses, go to retreats and have big emotional breakthroughs, then go back to your normal life and hit the same old problems. Sometimes that’s an illusion and you’re actually on a growth spiral. Sometimes the breakthroughs really don’t lead anywhere, and in this video I look at three common reasons why.
In this video
- Growth work can be exciting and fun: retreats in great locations, intense experiences, and a coach or therapist who makes you feel seen.
- If solving your problem means giving all that up, you have a subconscious incentive to stay stuck. Let yourself keep doing it even after you heal.
- All growth involves letting go, including letting go of feeling like a victim and the attention and comfort that come with it.
- Intense inner work can give you plausible deniability: “I’ve tried everything, and here I am with the same problem.”
- Paying a coach, a therapist or a plant medicine ceremony to make a problem go away can be a way to avoid responsibility for it.
- The thing you’re avoiding is usually the next rung on the ladder of growth.
- The fix starts with awareness. You can keep doing the same work, with a shift toward facing things, letting go and taking responsibility.