Outchhhh!! Growing hurts...

Usually and especially on social media, people only show the beautiful part of life. The success of the business, relationships, moments of pleasure and celebration. Fairy tale type. But as I think we all should know, that's just a tiny part of the process.

This is a topic that has even been heavily scrutinized by the medical/therapeutic class, regarding the impact caused by this misleading self-projection.

Maybe they do it as an attempt to receive attention, validation, approval, as an escape measure or even as a self-impulse mechanism trying to tell themselves “it's okay”!

Receiving praise from others is like a small injection of serotonin that makes us feel good.

Well, but ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. In fact, sharpens it.

Sharing something other than successes might show vulnerability. And in a generalized way, we connect vulnerability to weakness. From my perspective and personal experience, one does not derive from the other. Rather on the contrary. Showing yourself vulnerable is a highly courageous action. But as we never have trained this capacity, we probably know little about it. We don't even know how to do it right?

A good example of what I mean...

A few days ago I noticed a post from a friend where he shared that he got divorced. 

A social network was used to share that he had been married years before and now he used the same criteria to announce the break. And I thought: “yes sir, brave!!”. He did it in an elegant way, without victimizing himself, respecting himself and his at the moment ex-wife. And here is the great ingredient of communicating something less than good - without victimizing yourself and with respect (by all parties).

I believe that anyone who has (or thinks they have) an easy life, filled only and simply with high moments, is possibly in a waking coma. He's stunned and naturally maybe he hasn't realized it yet.

Pain is not necessarily a negative thing. Pain is absolutely necessary.

Like a muscle in our body, to grow it has to hurt. If it's not hurting, nothing is happening. Like we ear a lot “No pain, no Gain”.

But when we are in a process of mental, emotional and spiritual evolution, it hurts in the soul. It’s a pain that we are not very used to and which we know little about, management becomes so much more difficult.

We don’t manage something we don't know. Therefore, there is only one way to improve this ability: embrace it and train! And train with intention.

Some time ago I wrote:

“Personal development” is often a bit misunderstood because it sounds like such a fun and enjoyable ride. But if we called it “constantly and deliberately putting yourself in such an uncomfortable position that it feels like you are going to die”, very few people, so to say, even fewer people, would have the impulse to develop themselves.

I recently red a survey that mentioned that more than half of the famous Hollywood actors would have lost at least one of their parents by the age of 18.

However, they managed to catalyze that pain into fuel for their lives. And perhaps, not to say “with certainty”, it was that pain that led them to a state of delivery, dedication and focus, which allowed them to explore their talent in an amazing way.

This is the reactive part of pain, that is, something painful happened to us and we reacted in a way to use it in my favor instead of against me.

Since this is a fundamental work in leveraging our losses, this process, therefore, is not in our hands. For what, I believe, I defend and encourage that we constantly submit ourselves to conscious pain so we can grow intentionally.

And what do I mean by growing intentionally?

Growing up in line with the person I want to become in the future. So we don't end up being a person we didn't want. And there are many people in this circumstance.

Growing up hurts and it's necessary. 

This is what I believe and have experienced for years. And that’s why I work this capacity a lot with my clients on my 1to1 program - Grow MySelf Life & Career Coaching.

Final reminder: we connect with each other through our vulnerabilities, not our successes.

With love, respect and dedication.

João