THE GROWING SELF MODEL

Clearing the Air

Creating enough safety to move from protecting ourselves toward engaging with life again.

As humans, we have a certain way that we do things. We don’t just react; we first protect ourselves. We have to feel secure and safe in order to expand into something bigger.

Safety is at the top of our minds and our number one priority. If we don’t feel safe, we use our energy to make ourselves safe.

Clearing The Air is what happens when the storm settles enough for the Self to see what is actually happening. The system has to have enough space to stop living from protection and begin moving toward growth. This doesn’t mean everything feels easy.

Safety is not the same as comfort.

Safety means the system has enough stability to stay present while something uncomfortable is happening. Sometimes growth feels awkward, uncertain, or exposed.

But if the system has enough safety, discomfort does not have to become danger.

When the Mountains are disturbed, we use our energy to fight and get the last word in. We use our energy to run away and escape. We let indecision rule our world and constantly worry. Or we give so much of ourselves that we need a name tag to recognize ourselves.

This exhausts us to the breaking point and things have to change in order to continue. These instincts are for survival and they exhaust us when they are used too often.

But they don’t have to rule our life. There can be more.

Our instinctual drives kick in almost immediately when we feel threatened. They are effective and get results fast. They are supposed to. They are built for survival.

The other drives work slower, but they make sustainable action.

Protection asks, “How do I stay safe?”
Expansion asks, “What else is possible?”
Protection pulls our attention toward danger.
Expansion pulls our attention toward possibility.

Both are human and both have a purpose, but if protection becomes the main way we live the Self has very little room to grow.

The expanding instincts are adaptive to the situation and expand the Self. These are the parts of us that reach outward instead of closing down. They push us to explore our world and challenge the possibilities.

They lead to deep connections with other people and us. We gain understanding of what guides us in difficult situations. This is the actual engagement with life.

These growing instincts show up as curiosity, connection, expression, movement, creativity, and choice.

Curiosity asks what is happening.
Connection reaches for relationship.
Expression gives the inner world a voice.
Movement brings the body and life forward.
Creativity allows something new to form.
Choice helps the Self direct its life from awareness instead of reaction.

These do not erase the Mountains. They help the Mountains settle.

Most models start with learning to manage survival drives. The process involves recognizing the body and the patterns of sensations. Then taking this awareness and making choices.

I think that this is very important and is the correct way to manage survival drives. We need to know when the body is activated. We need to notice the heat, the tightness, the numbness, the restlessness, and the urge to please. These skills help us slow down.

But slowing down is not the same as growing.

Regulation gives us enough space to choose.
It does not tell us what kind of life to build.

I believe that trying to only manage these drives may put more emphasis on the wrong part of the system. These are survival skills that ensure our survival, but they are not sustainable as a way of life.

These survival skills should be a last resort. They are in response to something. They are what we use when the system believes there is danger.

But there is usually another part of us that is trying to move toward life before the fear takes over.

I want to tell my friend how I feel, but I’m afraid.
I want to try something new, but I might fail.
I want to be seen, but I might be rejected.

It is the fear that blocks us from expressing ourselves. The fear does not come from nowhere.

It usually appears near something that matters.

I want connection, but the fear of rejection shows up.
I want expression, but the fear of conflict shows up.
I want movement, but the fear of failure shows up.

The growing part of the Self starts to move forward, and the protective part of the Self tries to pull it back.

If I want to tell my friend how I feel, but I am afraid they will pull away, I may stay quiet. Then the feeling does not disappear. It turns into resentment, distance, or overthinking.

The survival system protected me from possible rejection, but it also blocked connection.

This is where we can begin to see the pattern. The protection may have worked, but it also kept another part of the Self from growing.

The Growing Self focuses on exploring and expanding these growing instincts.

It doesn’t begin by asking, “What is wrong with me?”
It begins by asking, “Where is life trying to move?”

Then, when fear, tension, avoidance, freezing, or people pleasing appears, we do not attack it. We get curious about it. We build safety around the place where growth is being blocked.

We don’t need to be taken apart and rebuilt like a piece of equipment. We aren’t cars stranded on the side of the road.

There is a difference between understanding ourselves and treating ourselves like a repair project. We can look honestly at our patterns without making the Self into a problem.

Fixing makes the Self into a problem.
Growing treats the Self as something alive.

A living thing does not need to be shamed into becoming. It needs the right conditions.

If you are reading this, then you are on your way to change. You want your life to be different and that is understandable.

But if we only focus on what you need to improve, you will always need improving. If we focus on how to expand and grow, you will find your own direction and balance in an authentic way.

Growth is not the same as becoming perfect. Growth is finding direction.

It is learning what opens us, what connects us, what gives us life, and what helps us move honestly through the world.

When we are safe, we expand naturally, but we learn how to protect ourselves. This process reveals how we have learned to protect ourselves and how those protections may now be holding back the parts of us that want to grow.

Discomfort does not always mean danger.

Sometimes discomfort means we are near the edge of an old Channel. Something in us is being asked to widen.

The point is not to fix the Self.
The point is to clear enough air for the Self to grow.