Hello! 

Let’s talk about the beauty and healing that is found when you decide to grow at your own pace, instead of getting stuck in what you think you should be doing. 

I’m going to be honest. I really dislike the world should. It has its uses, and moments where it’s the best word to use in a sentence or to describe something, but overwhelmingly- the word should immediately fills a person with a sense of guilt and pressure. 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to break up with those two feelings. Life shouldn’t be lived with those feelings, all they do is strip us down, wear us out, and leave us in an unsteady place. It’s not worth it. The reason the world should brings up feelings of guilt and pressure is because of the comparison that follows. 

You’re either comparing your journey and/or choices to the person using the world should and what they would do, or you’re causing yourself intense anxiety by comparing yourself to a general idea of how to achieve success or change based on what you were taught growing up.

If you do this- please stop. Don’t compare yourself to someone else or the ideas society has of how to do things “right” or “well”. Your healing journey won’t be like anyone else’s and that’s the beauty of it. Your healing journey is meant to be unique to you, the person you are, and the life you’ve lived. 

What your healing journey is not about is comparing yourself, and more importantly, not taking steps toward healing because other people aren’t in the same space as you. Oftentimes, you’ll have people in your life that are proud of their refusal to change and heal. 

Don’t. Be. That. Person. 

You deserve to commit to building the relationship you have with yourself. You deserve to have a happier, healthier, joyful life. You deserve to find healing, with whatever it is you want to heal. You deserve to grow at your own pace and grow into the person you want to be.

I love how spring naturally supports this idea. Picture a garden at the beginning of spring. There are a variety of bulbs and trees that are starting to wake up as the weather warms a bit. Some flowers, like daffodils, pop up early. Some, like hyacinths, start to pop out at the same time as daffodils, but they bloom a few weeks later. Different trees start budding at the same time, but they don’t all burst with leaves at the same moment. 

They do what they do, in their own time. Do you think the daffodils care what the cherry tree is doing? Do you think the orange tree cares what tulips are doing? Nope. Nature supports this idea perfectly. Everything is in harmony, growing at its own pace. 

And it’s beautiful, is it not? How everything is so different, but still brings so much wonder and beauty to the world? This part of the healing journey is meant to be the same for each person. 

In harmony, each person takes their own personal responsibility to grow, change, and heal at the pace that works for them. Your entire world will change when you connect to, and stop worrying about what other people are doing. It also gets a lot easier, and more expansive, when you choose to stop holding yourself back to suit other people and where they are at. 

Hopefully, for the people you’re closest to, they’re also growing at the same time, but at their own pace and everyone can support everyone else in achieving success as they define it. For the people that find stubborn pride in never changing, don’t let them bring you down, or prevent you from finding the beauty in your own process. 

Grow at your own pace. 

Your life deserves nothing less. 

In Gratitude, 

Robin