In previous posts I’ve addressed the topic of fear and differentiated between two types of fear: the real, imminent type, and the thought-induced type. I have also posted about the nature of this world as a world of mirrors. Both of these posts may prove to be useful in recognizing when your personal growth is here asking for your attention.

Let’s say that you have a friend who said something to you at a social encounter, something that didn’t sit well with you. You got hurt, insulted, and for the past week, maybe more, have been simmering, brooding over this exchange. “He hurt me.” “He insulted me.”

OK. Let’s have a look at that.

Byron Katie always says: “No one can hurt me, that’s my job.”

What does she mean by that? She means that it’s not what’s been said to you that is causing the agitation. It’s your thoughts about what’s been said to you that are the actual trigger. Allow me to demonstrate. Let’s say that I said to you “you are one lazy bastard”. Now, if you know yourself to be a hardworking, diligent person, this statement will likely cause you nothing more than a raising of the eyebrow… “Noam must be having a really difficult day if he says this about me… I wonder what’s going on in his life.”

But what if I said to you “You are stupid and unworthy” and you have a core belief that you are indeed unworthy, never good enough, what then? I would bet $100 that you might get ticked off. Why? Because I pushed a button that is already there, tightly embedded inside of you. It’s like the board game Battleship. I try to guess your ships’ locations on the board. I try “What are you hiding in location A5?” and you have no vessel in that part of the board, so nothing happens. I say “A5” and that’s where you deployed your aircraft carrier, and “kaboom” there’s much drama to unfold. Same “A5” in both cases, but the outcome depends on what was already set on your side of the board. Same with what people say to you about yourself. If you already believe it onto yourself, “kaboom”. If you don’t believe it, crickets.

Now, back to reality. You now have to meet with this friend, the one who “insulted you”.

If this friend is a real menace, meaning, if they are someone who repeatedly hurts you with purpose or casual disregard, you should absolutely draw your conclusions. As Byron Katie suggests, thank them. What for? For showing you who not to hang out with. There’s value in that.

But, if they made a sincere mistake, or uttered something (“A5”) without knowing or realizing your particular sensitivity about that and that’s not their typical MO, by all means, go ahead, meet with them, and name what happened so you can both grow from the experience and become better at attuning to one another’s needs (on how to do that, I highly recommend Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg as a great constructive way to provide feedback. It’s not about what was done or said to you, or who they are, rather it’s about how it makes you feel, something the other side is usually more open to hearing).

Now, here we get to today’s topic. Growth. Let’s say that my advice above (to reach out and meet with this person who “hurt you” so you can repair) makes you contract, shudder. “I don’t want to meet this person. They should apologize first. I don’t want to have to provide feedback…”

Let’s examine this. There is some fear here. Again, is the fear real or imminent? Is this a person who repeatedly hurts you and insults you? In that case, you likely already know what to do: stop seeing such people as they are not good for your well-being. I would still recommend closing business with such a person for your own benefit, but don’t do this expecting any change or outcome on their part. It’s solely for your own closure if you choose to do this.

But let’s say that they are a healthy, positive person in your life that happened to slip. What’s the fear in this case? It could just be fear related to speaking your truth, nothing to do with this particular person. A core belief that might be present here is the one about not being able to speak your truth and maintain connection (it’s either connection or truth, but not both, according to this core belief). Well, is it real or is it just very very uncomfortable? If it’s just your own core belief (that was formed in early early childhood as most core beliefs) wouldn’t you like to test its validity in 2020? What if you’ve been wearing the wrong core belief all these years and you could have both your truth and connection? That would be pretty radical, but how can you find out?

If it just feels uncomfortable, even if it’s very very uncomfortable, but it isn’t real, imminent fear, I suspect there may be some growth here knocking on your door. Growth often comes in the form of uncomfortableness. Sometimes I give an example of a smaller than thou t-shirt, which tells you you need a larger fit, but actually, the better example is that of the lobster. The lobster being a crustacean, is equipped with an exoskeleton. Its shell is its skeleton. It is its shell which protects its body from the various life-threatening menaces at the bottom of the ocean. The occasional octopus, fish or shark which will gladly gobble it up if it didn’t have this hard shell. Now, here’s the problem for the lobster. In order to grow, the lobster must molt, or shed its shell. During its first 5-7 growth years, it molts up to 25 times, and as an adult, it molts once every year or two. Imagine this life and death choice for a second. If I’m a lobster and I want to grow, I need to shed my shell, become mushy and soft for several weeks! Get this, only 15 minutes or so to molt, but then I need to be hanging around creatures who want to devour me for 6 to 8 weeks with as much protection as a piece of jelly? Yikes! But if I don’t shed my skin I will die, because my growth is dependent on it… so, the choice is between sure death if I don’t molt, to very possible death if I do. Nice. Aren’t you happy that you don’t face such a choice once a year? Your choice is between staying small and contracted, afraid of what your mind is telling you will be the end of you but really isn’t, managed by your fears of growing, or feeling the fear, the uncomfortableness, as you decide to not listen to your mind’s doomsday stories, leaning into the fear and growing.

To the mind, the possibility of growth, the unknown, the projections of what may happen, seem every bit as scary as the very real lobster’s choice. But is it real? Will you become jelly and get devoured? Or is this fear unwarranted and only here to provide you with the energy you need in order to take a leap of faith and prove your mind wrong (again)? It might just be the time to see for yourself…

Love,

Noam

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