Growing larger than this

I was discussing spring equinox with a friend the other day. “I feel I am being asked to be in winter and spring all at once,” she mused. “I feel stretched to capacity.”

That’s exactly what this moment feels like, to me. Stretched to capacity. Attempting to bridge impossible extremes, trying to adjust to the darkest dark and the brightest light all at once, aware of every extreme inherent to humans.

And after the stretch—if we survive it without pushing ourselves past capacity—we are just a little larger than we were before. A little more limber, a little more flexible. That’s the idea, anyway. Carl Jung once observed: “The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.”

And Rilke weighs in (translated by Robert Bly): “This is how we grow: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.”

It can help us in these moments of being strapped, stretched, pulled, to recall this. To recall that, if we can resist the urge to split and polarize, if we can just hold the tension here, we will be a little larger than before. A little less tight. A little more open.

When the stretch begins to hurt, it’s very tempting to shut down. But just as we can hurt ourselves by forcing the stretch too open or too soon, we can also hurt ourselves by retreating and putting our existential muscles into a state of contraction. If we allow the intensity to contract us, we have been defeated by something smaller than we are.

But if we can withstand the intensity of the stretch without shutting down, we might find an increased capacity on the other side. We might become acquainted with parts of ourselves that are, surprisingly, equal to the task at hand. That’s being defeated by something larger than your current self. Then, larger, you may find yourself capable of building the world you wish to live in. Action binds anxiety—it is a very specific kind of self-care when you take action on your values.

That’s not to say that any of this is simple, or easy. It hurts to grow larger. It can be painful, overwhelming, exhausting. I have found it helpful to remind myself that both sides of this stretch are true. The world is a very scary, very painful, very cruel place. And the world is a joyous, impossibly creative hive of beauty. Any truth less than any of that is too small for my experience. To have any of it, I have to stretch large enough for all of it.

Here’s a guided meditation that I’ve found helpful when life is asking me to grow larger.

We can grow larger than this. But to grow larger, we have to accept that things truly are as they are. We can’t avoid them or inch past them. We have to include them, then transcend. Any previous version of ourselves is too small if it doesn’t include the present experience, even if the present experience is uncomfortable or unwanted.

Whatever comes next for you, may it be gentle and safe enough for the most wounded part of you and courageous and spectacular enough for the bravest part of you. We need each other—the largest, most flexible versions of ourselves that we can be.

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If you find story, dreamwork, and community helpful in the endeavor of growing larger, you may be interested in these upcoming events. These events will be limited in size to create safety and intimacy, and will be in-person only. If you are not local to the Asheville area and would be interested in an online version of these experiences, reach out to me at innerlightasheville@gmail.com.