What would it look like for areas of your life to expand? What could it feel like? What could it mean to expand consciously?
This topic of EXPANSION is one that one of my friends and I have talked about a lot over the past decade. We have been by each others sides for nearly 20 years, through major life changes and transitions personally and professionally. The dying off of past relationships and jobs and into the re-birth of new horizons and life experiences. People of any age and institutions can undergo the growing pains that walk hand in hand with expansion.
There are many definitions of expand, but in this context I think of it defined as to open up or to unfold. To expand can be uncomfortable, and expansion will likely bring on both excitement and fear. Sometimes the choice to expand is optional and other times it is not. There are many types of life changes that can cause us to go deeper within ourselves, at times out of necessity, when we are undergoing expansion.
Types of Life Events that can Cause Expansion
- Loss of your job
- Decision to change your job
- Loss of a loved one
- Decision to let a relationship go
- Entering into a healing process
- Changing schools
- Starting a new relationship
- Facing a challenge in your job and/or relationship
I am just now wrapping up my first class at NYU. We discussed extensively what it means to expand, how it can feel to expand, and sometimes how we can react emotionally to the expansion that is happening.
Reaction:
Even with the excitement of starting a new life course, adventure or embarking on one, expansion can sometimes cause us to grieve – having feelings of sadness and anger – as your old patterns and ideas fall away to make way for new. Expansion, at times, can also cause us to want to cut and run – a flight response. We might know in our gut that it’s time to move forward, we may have already taken steps to make a significant life change, and moving forward might feel scary.
Pause:
Take the time to pause, to regroup when experiencing expansion. It can take time for new information and new situations to synthesize. Not everything needs to be decided all once. And maybe nothing needs to be decided right now. Give yourself time to feel what you need to feel. To have your feet on the ground where you are right now.
Move:
I know that sometimes we are forced to move when we are not ready. That can happen with events we experience that are out of our control. However, the actions you do have control over, do them when you’re ready and one at a time if you can. To take your time consciously to make moves in your life will bring great awareness and connection to the life you are living.
These roses were fresh and beautiful when I bought them. I noticed them starting to droop, wilt, and fray around the edges a couple of days ago. But I took this picture for this article right now because they make me think about a bit of what we are discussing. I have enjoyed these roses at all stages, with the exception that I didn’t cut the roses myself. ☺️ The brown around their edges gives them a new beauty. I will enjoy them in this vase that used to belong to my late Father, until I am ready to move on.
As I sit here next to these roses pictured in this article, I also think about life. I bought these for my son and gave them to him at his Spring Concert this week. Soon he will be leaving 3rd Grade and moving onto 4th grade. A significant transition, even at 9 years old. He has grown, changed, and developed more deeply into himself.
Take your time.
Breathe.
Connect.
Ask Yourself.
Move.
xo, Anandah
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