Don’t Grow Up, Just Grow

During the holidays, I’ve met with a handful of adult clients zooming in from their original family homes.

It’s seldom an easy trip down memory lane.

For many, it’s a reminder of the harsh constraints they faced in early years.

To a lot of us as children, becoming a "grown-up” looked to be a dismal affair.

Many adults just didn’t seem to be having a lot of fun out there.

They had burned out, crystalized into rigid patterns, become empty husks, or died on the vine. As Henry David Thoreau put it,

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Is this an inevitable product of aging and taking on adult responsibilities, i.e. adulting?

Not in my book!

When we do spend time with our family later in life it’s a lot more clear how specific their issues were. They may have serious depression, anxiety, chronic pain, OCD, avoidance, narcissism, or other patterns that indicate deep and unresolved emotional pain. Mental health was not on the agenda a generation ago. Boundaries meant fences, anxiety was not a thing, and tightening ones belt was the panacea for all ills.

Our unconscious template, or expectation of what it means to be an adult is likely a far cry from a full realization of human potential. Usually there just wasn’t enough emotional support for the amount of trauma inherited, and consequently, it was passed down to us to deal with.

Luckily, every generation has the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the previous, to heal inherited traumas and to flourish in their own particular way.

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I haven’t read the book, but I love the title of There Are No Grown-ups. I expect most people give an internal nod when they read these words, especially considering many of the individuals leading countries and mega-corporations these days.

The truth is that none of us are prepared to be adults in the way we expected as children.

And I don’t think it’s a bad thing to retain child-like qualities, especially if we also develop supportive inner parents. In fact, I think that it is a key aspect of mental health.

Without it you burn out like charred toast.

The adults that are having fun in the world are the ones that have kept their inner child alive and kicking.

Consequently, I prefer the idea of “growing” versus “growing up.”

Growing means trying new things and evolving, without crystalizing into a rigid form.

To me, it also implies healing or resolving patterns that aren’t working.

Whereas growing-up implies an end-point, growing is never done.

Best of all, YOU get to decide how you want to grow, and to test it out in the world.

Each time you grow, you send out a new tendril. Maybe it will find a new nutrient source or a friendly neighbor, or maybe it will dip into a poisonous puddle and retract in pain.

The more tendrils you send out that succeed, the more security your identity develops in the world.

For me fruitful growth areas include mental space, emotional weight, embodied presence, play, and imagination. I’ve found that these tendrils tend to enrich and expand my life-trajectory.

What tendrils are you growing?

Wishing you a nourishing and fruitful new year!!!!