Coming home on the bus from the “Wall” workshop I thought we were all done with our growth work; time to go back to the normal world. But not everyone felt like that apparently. A middle aged woman on the bus was still working through something. She asked one of the young men to role play her estranged son. They did a perfect job. I sat and watched from one seat back with folded arms feeling very superior to the woman. It was so obvious she was stuck in not forgiving herself. Then like a thunderbolt it hit me that she was doing my work. I also was not forgiving myself and it was causing me a lot of pain.
But it was kind of weird. The workshop was officially over and there was no facilitator on the bus to guide us and yet we were doing major work anyways. And then a second thunderbolt hit me — it is not just at workshops were we grow. Life itself is constantly our teacher if only we pay attention. In almost any situation, particularly difficult situations, there is an opportunity to learn and grow. When you wake up to that you have a personal growth mindset. Everything challenging and hard is an opportunity to grow. Personal growth people laugh about this and call it AFGO (Another fine growth opportunity). Sometimes we are known to use earthier language than fine.
But here is the key thing — my biggest growth has always been when I am in a community. We need to do our individual healing work, but we also so need to do our work together as well. In this section we spiral up and back to community (tock). For deep trauma work it is best to start off with nature, body work, and individual therapy (Beige). And that works needs to keep on going. But as soon as we have enough of a handle on our pain, it is time to do our work in group as well. That is where we expand beyond just healing our pain into leading a deep, rich, fulfilling life. Especially in our broken culture we need the help of a group to do our work.