The Spiral Effect
I love gardening it relaxes me. The minute my feet hit the soil I am home. Any lingering stressors from the chaos of my day immediately start to melt away. I walk into my garden, caress the leaves and search for new buds. Pull up weeds and make room for new growth.
More often than not, when I am spending quality time with my plants I find myself thinking.. “How incredible, they instinctively know where the sun is. They push up and out, getting on with the business of being alive, even if just for a season.” They go through very visible and natural cycles.
I am beginning to think that we do too.
When we begin to see life lessons as a cyclical concept, we can revisit the same lesson or problem and instead of deciding that we are failures for arriving back at the same place, we would instead think there is more to explore here. This is rich soil, the perfect breeding ground for contemplation. Learn to be present in this moment and take a breath here.
Perhaps exploring a question with no right or wrong answer in sight, is a way to deepen the lesson. A way to understand not only one concept but how it applies to others, the spiral effect.
There have been countless times that I have come back to the same problem or found myself staring at the same issue and thought HOW did I get here AGAIN? Frustrated and a bit embarrassed, I would think, am I just going around in circles? After all we have been taught that if the lesson has been truly learned there is no need to revisit. We have been made to believe that if you come back to the same lesson, it is you who contains the error. Because in linear learning once you ace the test there is no need to take it again, there is no need to revisit. You have learned your lesson. Move on. 1+1 = 2.
We have become so focused on having the right answers and doing everything perfectly that we have integrated our ability to get it “right” with how we measure our value and self-worth. And so when we continue struggle or come back to the same point of learning, we get angry and embarrassed and we see ourselves as failures, shame sets in. We hide or shift the blame. In an effort to escape the problem we shove it under the rug and refuse to look at it anymore.
Surely this linear approach to growth is not the only way that we can develop ourselves and deepen the understanding of what it means to live an enriched life. Perhaps nature has the right idea, learning can be more cyclical with us moving upward towards understanding through different periods of growth:
Dormant growth — nothing is seen on the outside but deep within there is progress being made.
Active growth - visible activity that can be seen for example: physical transformation, pages being written, sprouts being sprung.
Blossoming - The fruition of work, personal growth, a flower in full bloom, a first draft.
Wilting/ regeneration — compost, returning to center, rest and digest
When we see our journey around the sun as something organic, we step back from perceiving ourselves as being failures and resist the tempting reach of perfection but rather seek authenticity and growth.
Here's to appreciating ourselves just as we are.
