What if ‘progress’ and ‘personal growth’ weren’t what we thought they were?

Want to know something cool?

It’s about the concept of “progress” and how it’s all made up. Particularly when it comes to healing, growth and personal development.

It’s also about trees.

Trees (and the rest of nature) have no concept of progress.

They reach for the sun, welcome the rains, open and close their flowers, raise and lower their leaves, send their roots deep into the earth.

They grow, but they don’t grow because they’re bought into some false idea of progress.

They grow, but they don’t strive to grow because there’s anything wrong with where they are now.

They grow, but they don’t grow because they believe they’re not good enough as they are.

They grow, but they don’t grow because they’re trying to be better or more worthy or deserving or happier.

They grow, but they don’t grow because they’re trying to measure up to the growth of the tree next door.

Want to know why trees grow?

They grow because the conditions are right.

That’s it.

It’s that simple.

When there’s the right amount of sun, the right amount of water, the right amount of nutrients in the soil, it’s the right time of year, then they grow.

They’re not doing it to progress, they’re doing it as a natural function of having the right conditions.

What if we did the same? Instead of trying to force progress, instead of frantically reading more self help books and beating ourselves up for not healing fast enough, what if we recognised that perhaps right now the conditions aren’t right for us to be where we’d like to be?

And then we can choose - like a tree in winter, is it time to rest and wait for spring, or is it time to tend to the conditions we need in order for growth to come naturally?

Maybe we need more rest or a healthier diet. Maybe we need to hire a guide of some kind - a therapist or a coach or a mentor. Maybe we need to learn how to create a space that feels safe enough for our nervous system to move out of survival responses.

At first we may not know what conditions we need, and that’s normal and okay - it takes a different way of thinking and being with ourselves to learn these skills and they’re absolutely skills that can be learned.

It’s a softer way of being. Gentler. Kinder. Like tending to a tree with love, watering it by hand when the rain doesn’t come, instead of standing in front of it, hands on hips, demanding to know why it’s not growing faster and wondering what is wrong with it that it’s not.

It’s true that there are some positives to progress - the technological and scientific and creative advances that we’ve caused through following our innate curiosity are mindblowing, and have brought a lot of good.

Progress as a function of curiosity is awesome. Progress as a function of manipulating people into thinking there’s something wrong with them because the conditions aren’t right for them to heal or grow or change, resulting in them striving to measure up to impossible ideals to make them buy more stuff they don’t need in an attempt to feel happy or good enough is not awesome.

Trees don’t label themselves as not enough.

We don’t need to do that either, if we step outside this idea of progress, and look to tending to the conditions we’re growing in. Learning to identify and meet all the little needs that arise in us that we don’t see or disregard. Learning to be kind.

And when the conditions are right, we grow.