Recently, AFGO came my way. If you don’t know the acronym, it’s Another F#%$ing Growth Opportunity.
Growing is good, we all want opportunities to grow, and sometimes what growing looks like isn’t pretty.
We probably don’t need the F-bomb in the acronym as growing is good in general, right? 😉, and you can see from the acronym how many of us feel about the “opportunity” to grow. It requires setting down the parts of ourselves and lives that are comfortable, and a willingness to wade into what may be a lot less comfortable.
The outcome of growth goes into books, emails like this one, social media posts and public life in general.
The DURING phase of growing can look raw, unsure, messy, and confusing at times.
Here is a photo from a few days ago of me during the unsure, raw, messy and confusing part….it’s easy for me to share the “up” parts of my life with you, and there are some very, very real moments as well.
This past week, I had an opportunity to FEEL the steps of this in action, and wow-o-wow, it wasn’t very comfortable.
And it’s necessary. I’m super grateful for the opportunity. I’m grateful for the people who played their parts, and I hope that for each of them, they have their gold there as well.
Growth is necessary in order to feel alive, to feel vital, to have a meaningful life. Sometimes it’s hard to take an honest look at all of the parts. From this fresh view, I’ve created a cycle of sorts. I hope it’s helpful for you. 💜
1. What happened? Get clear on the whole picture.
2. Feel the feelings associated with what happened. This is often times where it goes wrong (or where the process stops and a story loop, blame, opinions of “who is right and who is wrong,” etc. begins). To feel the hurt as it is without needing to fix it, blame someone for making it happen, and really just feel it is uncomfortable. And can feel illogical- WHY are the feelings so strong?
3. What is your part of it? Is there something to take responsibility for? This is a big part of the growing…. When you get through the “feeling” part of it enough to get curious about what happened before the part that upset you. This is the part where you get to listen and process another person’s experience that is related to something that you said, did or acted upon.
4. Feel again… the feeling stages- they can be uncomfortable. Again, it can go badly here- another opportunity to go into a story loop, drama, self berating, feeling crappy about yourself in general. Stay with this place for a bit too- it’s important not to hijack the process and divert to blame- either self or to another in this phase either. BE with the feelings of your own humanity… that sometimes we do mis-step, over step or cause another person pain.
5. Make amends if needed- this is another growing opportunity. Take responsibility for the parts that you contributed to, for words you said, actions you took, and the places where you may have acted in ways that aren’t in alignment with who you are.
6. The GOLD is where you sit with steps 1-4 and get clear within yourself who you are, what you stand for, and if there are behaviors, actions, words that are coming out of your mouth, body and living that need to be cleaned up to be congruent with who you are becoming.
Each one of us is in a process of becoming…. Such is life. The seasons change, cycles change, and we get to change and grow too.
📷 by JMK photos www.jmkphotoscville.com
Experiences that take you through a growth cycle like this nourish the deep seeds of self accountability, self responsibility and the places where dignity, compassion, centered and grounded-ness stem from.
And there you have it… the growth cycle of opportunity. As you can see it’s a cycle, and if you are feeling stuck in any one of the steps, reach out. Get support. Find the way to move yourself through the process to that you get the GOLD.
I’m grateful for you.
With my love,