Growing Pains

Oh my, these last months I have been feeling it ALL. I have been rising and I have been diving deep. Not in the sense of crashing down but more that with every outward rise there has been a deepening within myself.

These last weeks, I have been invited to hold it all. While my external world was full of beauty and momentum, my inner world was asking something different of me. To hold something quieter, something tender. The parts of me that don't make it into the highlight reel.

Holding the beauty and the "beast", my inner child, inner teenager, inner wounded adult, all wanting to be seen, wanting to be heard. To be held. Not by letting her take over the wheels of my life, but by nurturing her. Not shaming her, not judging her for being there, not wanting to kick her out. Accepting that she is a part of me, a part that made me me.
To hold two opposites: outer movement and inner stillness, both at once.

It hasn't always been comfortable. It rarely is. As children, we felt it in our bodies, a physical stretching beyond what we were yesterday. It is no different now. The aches have simply moved inward, into the places we can't see, the parts of us that are being asked to become something larger than they have ever been before. We have never stopped growing. We have only stopped expecting it to hurt.

And that, I have come to realize, is the real work. Not the hustle. Not the strategy. Not the vision board. The real work is building the inner container, stretching it, tending to it, so that when abundance, love, success, or joy arrives at the door, we don't unconsciously slam it shut because some part of us doesn't feel safe enough, worthy enough, or ready enough to let it in.

What we often don't realize is that we have to expand in order to receive. So many of us are already so full, full of old stories, unprocessed emotions, inherited beliefs, that there is simply no room to let more in. So often we focus our attention on attaining things in the external world. Rarely do we pause and look inside to ask: Am I really available to receive this? Do I have the capacity? Can I hold it? Do I believe I can hold it?

And that expansion? It doesn't always look pretty. When we expand, things come up. Insecurities. Old wounds. Limiting beliefs. That is exactly why going slow matters. When we approach it mindfully, we can give ourselves permission to take intentional steps so it doesn't suddenly cause overwhelm, so the container doesn't burst from being asked to hold more than it was ready for.

Part of that intentionality is also asking: what do I need to release? Because expansion is not only about stretching outward. It is also about loosening the grip on what no longer serves us. The limiting beliefs we have outgrown. The identities we wore for protection. The habits or inner narratives that once kept us safe yet now keep us small. Letting go is not abandonment. It is an act of trust, in yourself, and in what is coming.

So we can be intentional with our energy, our expansion, our tolerance, our capacity. The focus is not the destination. It is the path. Make every step mindful. Gentle. Loving. Done with care. And within that, give yourself space to stand still. Not because you are not moving rather because stillness is part of the movement.

The pause is so often overlooked yet it is one of the most important things we can offer ourselves. It is the space where we feel, where we readjust, where we reconnect, where we reflect. The pause is not empty. It is not absence. It is actually the most full and alive space there is. It is where we come back to ourselves. Where we check in, not with our to-do list or our goals, but with our actual inner state. Am I okay? What do I need right now? What is this feeling trying to tell me? The pause is where we metabolize experience rather than just accumulate it. Where we digest what has happened before we reach for what is next. Without it we are just constantly consuming, constantly moving, never actually landing anywhere.

And it is in the pause that we can also tend to our fear. Because fear will come. It always does. And if we never stop long enough to notice it, it will quietly take over the wheels without us ever realizing it and asking ourselves where it wrong. The pause is how we become aware. How we catch it before it starts making decisions for us.

I know this from my own experience. There was a moment recently where I could feel it, the tenderness of expansion, the aliveness of it and then, almost without noticing, the overwhelm crept in. My external world was moving so fast that I had lost sight of the movements within. My inner world was constantly trying to keep up with the external and it was out of breath, literally. My breath was no longer deep in my belly but shallow and high in my chest. And I could see how it was almost sabotaging the beauty that was being created. I needed to pause. To tend to my inner world so I could hold what was being offered.

Because with that overwhelm we go to extremes, the swinging between open and closed, yes and no, expansion and shutdown, yet there are really only two forces at play: love and fear. When we are rooted in love, for ourselves, for life, for what is unfolding, we can stay open. We can receive. We can hold. But when fear creeps in, and it will, fear of being too much, fear of not being enough, fear of losing what we have gained or never fully having it at all, we contract. We protect. We shut the door just as the gift is arriving.

The invitation is not to never feel fear. It is to notice it. To meet it with the same tenderness we offer our inner child. To say: I see you, and I am not going to let you drive. We think overwhelm means we have to walk away. That it is a sign to stop, to close, to protect. But what if it is simply an invitation to soften? We just have to create a gentler space for ourselves within the invitation, the gifts, to breathe, to feel, to let the moment catch up with us. The pause is not a retreat. It is how we stay present without losing ourselves.

So if we want to receive more, we have to become more. Not louder, not busier.
Rather..
More present.
More tender.
More willing to sit with what is uncomfortable and say: I am not leaving. I am here. I am learning to hold this.
And in that holding, everything changes.