Unlocking Each Other: A Different Story About Spiritual Growth and Loss

We've been told the spiritual path is lonely. That transformation means leaving people behind. That to grow, we must lose.

We've each heard this about the spiritual journey - that you will have to make hard choices, shed relationships, outgrow the people around you. That you will be like the snake shedding its skin, and that it will hurt.

And it's not that this isn't true. It certainly can be true. The reason this story has taken hold - to grow you must lose - is that there are elements of truth to it.

Moving into alignment often means loss. But I want to pause us here and wonder if we're telling ourselves the wrong story about what is actually happening. Not to deny the loss, but to shift our lens a little when we talk about transformation, alignment, and grief.

And this matters! As long as we hold "to grow you must lose" as the main story, we cut ourselves off from a lot of growth. We can't go after transformation full-stop. We can't really be in it if we're scared of outgrowing others. We can't do what it takes because we're so afraid that we will lose people, that we will leave them behind.

A Problem of Contortion
In this pause, let's look at what happens when transformation begins. Often, we arrive here after a long period of fitting ourselves into our circumstances. Like a pair of jeans we've outgrown - who am I kidding, I'm talking about leggings here, I haven't worn jeans in years! - we've squeezed ourselves into a role, identity, or relationship that no longer fits. We can keep wearing those leggings, but the waistband digs in. The fabric strains. We're working really hard to hold a shape that doesn't want to be held anymore.

When we feel this squeeze, we begin to realize that we are out of alignment with our truest selves. The size we were is not the size we are now. We're contorting our body into a shape it no longer wants to hold.

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