Maybe It's a Personal Growth Spurt
Ever felt like you're going through a growth spurt, but for your soul? You might feel tired all the time, hungry for more in life, and even a bit awkward. Whether initiated by ourselves or by the events in our lives, our personal growth spurt challenges us to shed old identities and embrace new possibilities. It urges us to invest in what truly aligns with our evolving selves. We can see ourselves through these changes with extra care, understanding, and nourishment.
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Mentioned:
The scene from Dirty Dancing https://youtu.be/GIphXCg3CyE?si=9CJ1t2oGSQ30Q1Cw
Make Magic:
Embrace your personal growth spurt with compassion and curiosity. Recognize the signs, prioritize self-care, and invest in what resonates with your evolving self to navigate this transformative period with grace, love, and intention.
Transcript: Maybe It's a Personal Growth Spurt
Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Hello, my love. OK, long, long time; no new episode. And the reason for that is the topic of today's show, actually. What I want to talk to you about today are what I can only describe as personal growth spurts—personal growth spurts. It is such a thing. I see them in my clients all the time, like, especially when we're working together, because working together is like a personal growth crucible [laugh], yeah? And I just had one. So that is what I want to talk to you about today is what they are, how to recognize them, and then what to do when you are having one.
OK. So I think you are all familiar with the concept of personal growth, right? Personal growth is where we are expanding our self-conception. We are beginning to maybe see more of ourselves. We are perhaps shedding identities that are too constraining, or we are exploring identities that are calling us. Personal growth is where we are very interested in being more intentional in who and how we are. We just want to be more conscious about it, have a bigger say in it.
You're also familiar with the idea of a growth spurt, yeah? We see these in children maybe most often. A growth spurt is where a lot of growing happens in a shorter than usual period of time, so just at a much quicker rate. I have teenagers now, and so I have seen lots of growth spurts happen, mostly physical growth spurts but also psychoemotional growth spurts, intellectual growth spurts, right? It's not just physical, but the physical growth spurt is the one I'll be sort of anchoring into as a helpful analogy for today, yeah?
So, OK, what do we notice in a physical growth spurt, and how does that look in a personal growth spurt when a large amount of personal growth happens in a more condensed or a shorter amount of time? Because it turns out that really a lot of the same things happen in a personal growth spurt that happen in a physical growth spurt. It's fascinating, but that's how it is.
Probably the first thing I'll notice if my kid is having a growth spurt is they are much hungrier than usual, and they are resting way more than usual. Like, they are ravenous, they are eating me out of house and home, as they say. [laugh] They're just, like, they're consuming so much, and also they are sleeping so much.
The same thing happens when we're having a personal growth spurt. Now, what we're consuming and what we're hungry for, it can be actual food because, listen, the brain is an incredibly energy consuming organ, and you may very well be a lot hungrier, like, literally in your body.
You know when you travel, especially if you travel to a place where the dominant language is not the language that is your dominant language? So if I go to Paris, and I don't really speak French so well, I'm so hungry and so tired, right, because I'm navigating a new place. I'm navigating it in a new language. My brain is working so much harder than usual to acclimate me to a new place and to do very basic things, right?
I am physically hungrier. I don't think it's only because French food is delicious. That's definitely part of it. But, right, I'm just—I'm hungrier. I want to eat more, and I'm so much more tired. Right?
So the same is true with a personal growth spurt. We may very well be literally hungry. You'll find yourself wanting to eat more. You may also find yourself wanting to consume more resources. Maybe you're like listening to podcasts. You're reading. You're reading books. You're learning everything there is to learn.
Maybe you're having intense conversations about the thing that you're into. Maybe you've begun studying something new, and you're diving into the deep end of it, right? You're just hungry for more.
In a personal growth spurt, we are in this kind of enhanced consuming mode, and we're so tired—so tired. [laugh] This is one of the most common things that I encounter with my clients about a month into our work together. They will suddenly just be like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so exhausted. I can't seem to rest enough. I can't seem to sleep enough. I can't seem to have enough downtime."
And of course, right, when that happens, we have to trust it, trust that we need that time to integrate, to restore, to replenish. I'm circling back to the first one, to integrate. That is one of the most important things that sleep and rest does for us. It helps us to digest experience, information, right?
Like, our sleeping brains have this whole self-cleansing mechanism. Did you know this? When I learned this, it just, well, it makes so much sense. It knocked me out, though. So our brains have a glymphatic system, which allows them to basically permit more cerebrospinal fluid to flush through the tissue of the brain, and to flush out what's not necessary; also to, like, reconfigure which neural pathways are receiving more, and which neural pathways it's time to shut down.
It's like a whole thing. I'm obviously not a neuroscientist, so I won't go into it. But read about it. It's amazing. As we sleep, our brains are recalibrating, renewing, and integrating what we're learning. So, of course, if we are in a personal growth spurt, where we are adjusting our mindset, we're doing a lot of self-reflection and a lot of self-inquiry, well [laugh], there's a lot to adjust. There's a lot to release, to flush away. There's a lot to integrate and to begin to nourish and nurture. Yeah?
OK. So that's the first thing: eating more, sleeping more, reading, listening, consuming more in a personal growth spurt. Here's another thing that happens in a growth spurt: clumsiness [laugh], yeah?
I had the best time last weekend. I visited my sister, and I got to see my nephew, who's a fifth-grader play soccer. And watching these like 10-year-old boys play soccer was such a fucking delight because all of them were athletic, right, but they're also so actively growing. And so there were varying levels of just like, oh, my legs are a lot longer than my brain knows they are [laugh]—you know what I mean?—like, that kind of baby deer legs clumsiness that just comes from, "I have expanded, and I haven't yet fully integrated the expansion." Yeah?
So this absolutely happens on a personal growth level as well. It's like, I'm not exactly as clear about what I think because my mind is really changing, or maybe I'm now allowing myself access to feelings, to deeply held truths that I don't yet know what to do with. Right? We can have a real feeling of emotional awkwardness.
Oh [laugh], you know what it makes me think of? Do you know the moment in Dirty Dancing where Baby visits Johnny? I hope you've watched Dirty Dancing. If you haven't, please remedy that. [laugh] But Baby visits Johnny in his like staff quarters, and she's like having this sexual awakening, having this huge personal growth spurt into more of an emotional adulthood.
And she has this little speech where she's like—I mean, I know this from heart because [laugh] big Dirty Dancing fan—she's like, "I'm scared of what I saw. I'm scared of what I did. I'm scared of who I am. And most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room, and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." And then Solomon Burke's Cry to Me record drops. It's like a whole moment, right?
But it's like that feeling of like, "I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm doing and, at the same time, I'm so fucking clear I want this thing. I'm so clear this is a part of me that I'm ready to embody."
So there's emotional awkwardness. It's kind of scary. It's kind of exciting. It's like tentatively beginning to be this next person. It's stepping into the growth, right? So we're going to have to link that scene [laugh] in the Show Notes, that that amazing scene. I'll go find it. It's so good.
Yeah. So in addition to the hunger and the tired, there's this kind of awkwardness where we're figuring out how to live the truths about ourselves that we are uncovering, how to embody the aspects of ourselves that we are discovering, and also how to shrug off and release and shed the more confining older ways of being. And it's a little awkward. It's a little awkward.
And so, for me, my sweet listener, that's really the reason I haven't recorded an episode for you in a while. I just couldn't quite figure out what to say. Things are shifting for me, interests are shifting for me, and, you know, I always have lots of ideas.
In the CliftonStrengths, ideation is my number one. I always have lots of ideas. But they were all a jumble, and all tangled up, and I just, yeah, awkward. [laugh] I don't know. Just, no, I don't really know what I want to say. And, frankly, I'm hungry and I'm tired, and I'm just going to give myself a moment to integrate before I ask myself to express. Yeah?
OK, hunger, tiredness, awkwardness. Here's the other thing that happens with the growth spurt. What used to fit doesn't fit anymore. And, oof, this one's hard, yeah? So in a kid, it's like they come downstairs wearing pants, and you're like, "Those pants are three inches too short." [laugh] And it seems like it happened overnight.
It's springtime right now here in the Northern Hemisphere, and that's what the trees look like sometimes. It's like, wow, overnight that green-tipped branch leafed out. [laugh] It's just, you know, it does, growth happens fast sometimes.
So in a personal growth spurt, toward the end, I should say, of the personal growth spurt, what used to fit no longer fits. And when it comes to a personal growth spurt, we're not talking about sweaters and pants. We're talking about relationships. We're talking about work that you do.
I used to do this work happily. It doesn't fit for me anymore. It doesn't light me up anymore. I used to be able to tolerate this passive-aggressiveness from this front, but it doesn't fit anymore for me. I can't seem to find the room to tolerate it. Yeah?
In a personal growth spurt, your house might no longer fit, right? And I don't mean that it's not big enough. I just mean that it doesn't fit. It's not quite right. It's not what you need.
It could be that your schedule doesn't fit anymore. It doesn't suit you. Right? It could be, oh, for years, I've been waking up every morning to meditate, and I just—it doesn't fit anymore. It's not what I want anymore, or it doesn't feel the same, or I need something else.
This can be pretty difficult. And, you know [laugh], just like with a kid's physical growth spurt, it can be expensive. Like, you might need to start to make some investments. Huh, I used to be able to do my own books, but it doesn't fit anymore. Now I need a bookkeeper and an accountant and a financial advisor, or I need a better bookkeeper and a better financial advisor [laugh], right?
Like, toward the end of a personal growth spurt, and it may, again, it may feel like all of a sudden it's like, I just can't be in this situation anymore. And I had that I think a little bit with Mind Witchery. Like, I released an episode every Thursday for literal years, hundred-plus episodes, and I was very proud of that.
I told you my number one is ideation. My number 34 [laugh], like, my least of the lesser strengths in the CliftonStrengths assessment is consistency. And so it was a matter of pride to me that I was able to show up and record the podcast every week.
But you know what? Over the last couple of months, it just doesn't fit anymore. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't suit me. Why? I don't know. Maybe I feel like I have less to prove, to me, to you. I don't know.
I've certainly been doing other kinds of creative endeavors, and interested in other kinds of creative things. I'm very in a personal growth moment of honoring my desires at a next level, and so that impulse, that imperative to make sure I had an episode ready to go every single Thursday, it just didn't fit anymore. So time for me to figure out what does.
I very much wanted to talk to you today. I've been incubating this personal growth spurt idea for like a while. [laugh] I love it. I love it. I've been using it with clients who are like, "Oh, why am I so fucking tired?" or who are like, "I just cannot work with this particular client any longer. I don't know why, I just—I can't do it anymore." Right?
So I've been using the concept, and excited about the concept. And today, finally, I was so happy [laugh] to want to sit down and record an episode about it. And/but something has shifted. It feels different. I'm figuring out the new thing that fits.
So those are the symptoms of the personal growth spurt: the hunger, intellectually and physically; the tiredness, the awkwardness [laugh]; the, this just doesn't fit. What are the causes? Well, I think that life can bring us a personal growth spurt, or we can bring a personal growth spurt to life, yeah?
So sometimes something happens in our lives, a big shift of some sort. And this can be a great shift, like, a flurry of speaking opportunities, or it can be a really challenging shift, like, a need to do more caregiving to someone in our life. So sometimes life brings us a personal growth spurt. It's like, "Listen [laugh], here you go. You know, figure this out, and fast."
And sometimes we bring a personal growth spurt to life. Sometimes we say, "OK, finally I am going to write this memoir." And we say, "OK, I want to make good now on my promise to myself to be a nomad for a year. I want to explore a new way of being in the world." And so sometimes we bring the personal growth spurt on.
I don't think, in either of those cases though, we are expecting one of those like intense, condensed periods of growth. I think they just come. So what do we do when we encounter them? I like to drop right into the analogy, and go into, well, what do I do for a kid in a growth spurt?
I let them sleep. I let them sleep. I recognize they need sleep. This is so important. I know if you're here, you're like, how can I possibly need more time off? You're like, I just took a three-day weekend. How could I possibly need more? Well, you need more.
You need more rest. You need more downtime. You need more free time. You need more sleep. You are integrating huge shifts, and that requires inactivity, truly.
For a kid in a growth spurt, I see that they're eating. I feed them. I feed them well. I think, OK, we are building this new body. Let's build it out of really good food. Right? So I feed them. I feed them well. I feed them high-quality home-cooked food. I don't judge at all a second and third helping.
I mean, listen, I don't know why you need to binge yet another podcast about non-monogamy, but you do, so do it. So ample permission but also facilitation of this care and feeding and rest.
OK The awkwardness, so being with the confusion, being with the kind of mixed internal messages, right, gosh, there's a part of me that just wants to say yes because I always say yes, but there's this really strong no that I'm inclined to listen to. OK, cool. So take your time with that yes–no pull.
You know, the moments those sweet little soccer players fell down on the field were the moments that they were rushing for the ball, right? So we can slow down in our awkwardness. If we're not sure whether or not we want to offer a service, we can just slow down, and give ourselves time to sort through the mess of thoughts and feelings that go with it.
Also, we can change our minds. If you are going through an emotional growth spurt, let's say, when you're dating, you can say yes to a date, and then you can really sit with how this person's been treating you, and you can say, "Um, actually, no. Actually, no, I don't want to go." You can change your mind, and it can be a little inelegant.
So for the awkwardness thing, it's really for me about giving time and space—I should edit that to say compassionate time and space—to sort through the tangle, the mess, the mix of thoughts and emotions and identities that has us asking like, who the hell am I? Right? We can take our time.
And then, finally, when things don't fit toward the end of that personal growth spurt, when things just don't fit anymore, well, what do you do with a kid? You buy them new clothes. You invest. It's expensive [laugh], but you invest.
OK. My self-honoring has grown to a point that I am recognizing I cannot be a full-time homemaker and a full-time entrepreneur. So I'm investing in help, yes, even more help. Or I can see desires and possibilities now that I never imagined were possible for me. I can invest in help to write my TED Talk or I can invest in a better therapist who can help me to my next depth of personal growth. Right?
Yeah, it's going to be expensive. And I know you just found that therapist. You just hired that bookkeeper. I know. But it doesn't fit anymore. And so we've got to give ourselves permission to say, all right, I guess I've got to find the one that does.
And, you know, I will tell you, the thing that I do in a personal growth spurt always is I hire a coach. I get a coach. A coach for me is necessary support for sorting through that tangle of who I'm not anymore, who I want to be, who I am, what's true, what's no longer true, what I want to be true.
You know, a coach for me is feeding and supporting that integrative work and that sorting through the awkwardness that I need to do. And a coach for me is helping me to conjure and call in and create what does fit, and to do the necessary and often, frankly, excruciating work of letting go what doesn't fit.
Of course, you know, I am a coach. I love helping people through their personal growth spurts, their entrepreneurial growth spurts. It's my favorite thing. It's my favorite thing [laugh] in the world to do. And I also, as a growing person myself, I also love to be coached through those moments.
All right, my love. Well, I hope this was worth the long wait for you. And I wonder if you might be in the middle of some kind of personal growth spurt yourself. You know, one more thing to say—see? Awkward. I don't know. I'm still figuring it out.
One more thing to say [laugh] about the personal growth spurt is that, like, it could be happening in one little area of your life; not all the areas, right? So you could be having a spiritual personal growth spurt. You could be having a sexual personal growth spurt. You could be having a nuclear family relational growth spurt, or a professional growth spurt, or, you know, there are so many different places that we're always growing and changing.
You know what I'm always saying. Everything is always changing, and so are we. And sometimes life brings us a personal growth spurt—it requires one—and sometimes we call a personal growth spurt to our lives. So wherever that is for you right now, I hope so much that you'll think of this part of yourself, this growing part as a bleary-eyed kid in too-short pajamas just woke up from a long, deep sleep so hungry, so stumbly. And I hope you'll treat that part with so much generous, tender loving-eyed care.
All right, my friend. Thank you so much for listening, as always, and bye for now.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Mind Witchery. To catch all the magic I’m offering, please subscribe to the show, or if you want a little bit of weekly witchiness in your inbox, sign up for my Sunday Letter at mindwitchery.com. If today’s episode made you think of a friend or loved one, your sister, your neighbor, please tell them about it. We need more magic-makers in this troubled world.
Like all good things, this podcast is co-created by stellar people. Our music is by fabulous DJ, artist, and producer, Shammy Dee. Our gorgeous art is by the sorcerers at New Moon Creative. Mind Witchery is produced in conjunction with Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, executive producer. And I am Natalie Miller. Till next time.
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