I’ve been seeing more clearly lately how everyone and everything is always growing and expanding. It’s like there’s a natural force that’s pulling us or propelling us into the future with a tendency to stretch us and expand us along the way.
We even see this physically, don’t we? Our bodies are always changing, growing into the next version of us. Look at children. They’re being pulled into larger, more developed bodies by their very nature. None of us “decide” we’re going to grow. It happens naturally.
We can see it in our mental, emotional and spiritual “bodies” too. We’re naturally drawn to learn more, to experience more, to expand into more of our capacities. It shows up in our business pursuits, our parenting, playing sports, yoga, whatever. We’re always being drawn to express more of our capacity and be more of who we really are.
The thing is, our experience of this growth doesn’t occur in a smooth, graceful flow like watching a time-lapse of a flower opening. It’s more like waves washing up on a beach, and noticing over time that the tide is rising higher. What grabs our attention is the coming and going of the waves in and out on the beach. And seeing the in and out of the waves, we don’t always notice how the tide is rising, how we’re always growing.
In our lives, we experience ups and downs, times of great pressure and times with pain. All this is part of the natural pull and propulsion to grow and expand. The cool thing is that we have a built in guidance system to help us navigate it all. We have feelings and nudges encouraging us to stay aligned with, or balanced in our growing and expanding process.
It can be like seeing someone and for some reason wanting to get to know them. There’s just a natural draw to hang out, spend time together, share. When we follow that nudge, we feel good. When we resist it, we don’t. We can feel tense, empty or confused, and then go up into our heads to try to figure out how to feel better.
What if the little nudges we feel are the feedback loop directing us in the direction of expansion and growth naturally? And when we respond to these nudges and follow them, we feel good. When we don’t, we don’t feel good.
An interesting thing about the nudges is that they don’t always seem logical or reasonable. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes the nudges seem absolutely crazy. But they aren’t. I’ve heard a number of people say they knew they were going to marry someone before there was any “evidence” that that was even a possibility.
The reason nudges seem unreasonable some times, I think, is because they come from an intelligence that is much bigger than our minds ability to comprehend. So, when we try to make sense of some of them with our logical minds, things don’t add up. But still we KNOW that it’s true and the right thing to do.
So, let’s follow those nudges and see what life has to bring. It’s such an amazing adventure that way.