That is growth

Someone pointed out to me once that I said, “that’s growth!” a lot, and that they liked that I celebrated that, even the small things. This, in particular, was after something very silly that I can’t remember and I’d said it as a joke, but I appreciated that, because I didn’t even really realize I was doing it, or had done it other times before. (And that, I guess, shows us in and of Itself how valuable, and even critical, other relationships are to reflecting back our own growth, and, as a result, encouraging us to grow even more!)

My therapist called them “sparkling moments,” I think, which reminds me of the little Christmas lights I see twinkling in my Tía Nora’s neighborhood in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, where I sit outside writing this as I listen to the little coqui frogs chirp.

When I was here a year ago, I wasn’t writing here. This place did not yet exist, this blog, and now, here we are. That’s growth!

Grow curiously

I bought a Monstera at the Mar Vista Farmers Market not long after moving to Los Angeles. I was with my friend Katie, and I named the plant Moana. It had had already nearly outgrown its farmers market pot, and the nice people there repotted it for me, and I took it home to put on my dresser in my bedroom, where stretches awake to reach the morning sun and cranes to see the sunset color Century City and the Hills in the distance a gentle pink.

A week into settling into her new home, both pot and place, Moana was reaching in new directions, taller than before, splaying out, welcoming it all in. I sent a photo to Katie and she responded with emoji smiles, admiring comments and said, “I love how they grow, so curious.”

To grow curiously; what a beautiful, playful concept. How much more enjoyable, fun, easeful, experimental and gracious is all growth, all learning, all possibility, when rooted in curiosity? So much more, I feel.

May we all always grow curiously.

For Katie, with whom curious growth led us to life abroad in Buenos Aires and on many beautiful trips, from Japan to Santa Barbara, and I’m sure more to come

Intuition is a voice that grows stronger

…the quieter I get, the more I go within with meditation, the more I honor it and validate it by following it, the stronger the voice of intuition gets.

All the voices, all the noise, and, there are differences. This one is different. It’s quieter and more resolute. It comes from a deeper place, one within the core of my being, and it’s unwavering. That’s mine, and maybe, because yours is yours, it’s different for you. I hope you get to know it, because it’s really such a fulfilling relationship.

I’ve found honoring intuition in small ways, like through following charm in little daily moments of play, makes it easier to follow it in bigger ways (the little things are the big things), to step into it when it maybe feels scarier. Yes, this, too, is right. And it is all right.

Intuition is a voice that grows stronger—like most things—with belief and honor and love.

The more I let go, the more I let grow

“That’s it; that’s the post,” as the internet and those on it often say. Let go; let grow.

I’ve noticed that the more I continue to let go—even a little, even little by little, sometimes in a big, white-flag moment of surrender—of expectation, of control, of need, of attachment to outcome, of urgency, of not-enoughness, of perfection, the more I myself grow, the more I create a welcoming space for others to grow around me, and the more I allow for the organic development of whatever the moment is that I am in. And once I do it, it often feels like such exhilaration. Like sending a pass into the beyond, like jumping into the water below, like throwing up my hands on a ride.

Like a friend who loves to tend succulents said to me back when we were both managers, about caring for succulents, about management, about life: “The less you try to control and do, the better.”

So, I’m letting this post go, just as it is, and letting this writing and space grow, into whatever it is.

Letting go, letting grow.

Posted in inspiration of sharing this with a colleague-turned-friend, Hanna. 💐