A Spell for Steadiness on the Growth Edge
You already know that the Growth Edge
is a deeply uncomfortable place to exist.
Expanding our capacities requires us
to shift our tendencies, and to
show up in the world in ways
we’re just not accustomed to.
Here is a customizable spell to help you
identify and embrace your Growth Edges.
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Mentioned: If you’re out there on the growth edge
and craving more support,
you might like to join me for Cauldron,
my hybrid group/1:1 coaching circle beginning this Spring.
Show your interest in this most magical endeavor
at https://www.nataliekmiller.com/cauldron.
Make Magic:
When you’re out on the uncomfortable edge,
you’ll be trying to break out of patterns
you’ve been rewarded for maintaining.
Thinking through who and how you want to be in the world
will help you stay grounded while you transcend those limits.
Transcript: A Spell for Steadiness on the Growth Edge
Natalie Miller: Welcome to Mind Witchery. I’m your host, Natalie Miller, and I’m so glad you’re here.
Hello, my dear. I’m glad you’re here, and I am really looking forward to sharing with you a spell that I have been using extra, extra much over the last couple of months. This one is very simple. It requires a bit of customization but, I have to say, it’s really done wonders for me in a time of big growth.
So, today’s spell is a spell for steadiness on the growth edge. OK. So, what do I mean by a growth edge? So, the growth edge is sort of where you have expanded to a point that an old behavior or an old tendency is no longer effective or sustainable.
When you go out to the edge of that growth, you’re on the growth edge. And this is a place where it is time to shift into a new way of being; to begin to adopt a new tendency; to be more aligned with your values, more aligned with the direction that you’re going.
This is a place where you are ready to expand some kind of capacity, right? You’ve grown out to this edge and, in order to go further, there’s growth that you need to do on the inside. So, let me give you a couple of examples of what I mean.
For example, I know someone who is expanding her capacity for rest. She is a worker. She loves to work. She’s great at working. And her work has gotten so potent, so intense, that she can actually no longer work in the same way that she used to.
And she found herself feeling—strangely, for her—unmotivated, unfocused, and tired. And what we talk about is how she needs to expand her capacity for rest in order to fuel this very potent work that she’s doing.
Here’s another example. I have a client who is ready to shift into more decisiveness. She spends a lot of time mulling, and reconsidering, and thinking about options, and weighing the pros and cons. And it’s just come to a place where even though that tendency has served her in many ways in her life, at this moment, at this point, it’s actually getting in her way.
So, she’s grown to the place that she is ready now to learn a new way of being with decisions—namely, a more decisive, a more efficient and self-trusting and courageous way of being with decisions. And, so, her growth edge is around making decisions.
OK. So, now that you know what I mean by a growth edge, let me give you the spell. The spell is, I am growing out of a pattern of—and then that’s where you customize it.
So, the first woman is growing out of a pattern of over-work, or resistance to rest. The second person, the indecisive one, I am growing out of a pattern of indecisiveness. I’m growing out of a pattern of prolonging decision-making.
So, you’ll play around to find the right way of wording it. Let me share with you my own experience with this spell. And I’ll tell you that I got this spell from a coach of mine. A coach of mine said it, and it resonated so deeply that I adopted it immediately.
And I think I’ve told you before, I usually—I cast spells on my days. So, I’ll sit with my planner. I love to sit in the morning with my planner, my journal, a cup of coffee, usually Kevin curled up next to me, and think through my day.
So, I take, you know, the appointments and the to-dos, and I put them in my planner. And then I love to cast spells on the day to remind myself in the bigger sense what do I want to believe? What am I working on? And, so, this is a spell I have been casting on my days.
Mine goes, I’m growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing myself. And this is what my coach said to me. “You are growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing yourself.” So, how did they get there? Well, I have a tendency to be very, very generous. I love to give. I love to go above and beyond. And I also have a tendency to do more with less.
Finally, I have a tendency to feel uncomfortable receiving, and specifically receiving help. And I won’t go into all the reasons that that is. But, for now, just know, for Natalie, giving way easier than receiving, and a real talent—ugh—it doesn’t feel like a talent anymore [laugh] but it’s a talent, it’s an ability to make a lot happen with very, very few resources.
And, by the way, I have been rewarded for both of those tendencies in my life. There’s a reason for that pattern. It’s not just who I am. It’s that I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from both of those tendencies. It’s so wonderful that you can give so much. It’s so amazing that you can make so much happen with such little help, right?
So, nonetheless, I have reached a point where those tendencies—over-giving, doing more with less—are no longer serving me. Where I am going, where I am growing, I need to be in a different way. So, I am growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing myself.
Now, there are two things that I love about this spell, and it’s the reason that I called it a spell for steadiness on the growth edge because, let me tell you, the growth edge is deeply uncomfortable. I mean, I’m telling you something that you already know. You know that.
The growth edge, the place where we are expanding our capacities, the place where we are shifting our tendencies, it’s really uncomfortable because we’re being in the world in a different way. We are no longer being in a way that we are accustomed to being; that we’re comfortable being. Listen, even though it is unsustainably draining to over-give as much as I over-give, it’s very comfortable for me. I’ve been doing it for decades. Right?
It’s comfortable like—the analogy that I love is like it’s comfortable like an icky child’s blanket. Do you know what I’m talking about? The blanket that your kid has had for literally a decade, and it’s sticky no matter how many times you wash it?
I always think of my little brother’s blanket. It, like, always kind of smelled like apple juice with a little bit of pee. It was sticky. It was tattered. It was a lovie. It was cozy. And he’d grown out of it but it was still somehow around. You know what I mean? So, those old tendencies are kind of like that, the icky blanket that at least is familiar.
When we’re on the growth edge, we’re expanding into what is unfamiliar; what is not actually automatic. It’s something that we have to pause and consciously shift toward. So, what I love about the spell for steadiness on the growth edge is that it both names where we’ve been, and orients us toward where we’re going. Isn’t that lovely?
So, there’s a way in which by naming the pattern that I have been creating, I am honoring the discomfort that I’m feeling. There’s not that sense of, ugh, Natalie, why can’t you just receive help? It’s like, oh, there is a pattern of under-resourcing. That is what I’m used to. That is what I’m inclined to do.
And, so, when I declare I’m growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing myself, I understand that the discomfort I’m feeling is not actually around receiving. It’s not actually around saying yes exactly. The discomfort that I’m feeling, the reluctance that I’m feeling to say yes to more resources, is coming from breaking, disrupting the old established pattern.
So, let me give you two examples of how this has worked for me personally, lately. So, one is I have really been on a health journey. In 2020, 2021, my body finally began to process a lot of very traumatic experiences that I’ve had over the last several years. And as my body finally is ready, is in a place where it can process those traumas, I’ve had all kinds of pain.
So, I was in a place where, OK, I’m working with a personal trainer, and that’s really helping. And then I’m working with a physical therapist, and that’s really helping. And I have a massage therapist, and that’s really helping.
And, to me, especially to the me who under-resources herself, that is like so extra, so beyond, like, shouldn’t that finally be enough? Are you kidding? A trainer and a PT and a massage therapist? Come on, you’re fine.
But the reality is I’m not fine. There’s this missing element. So, I considered, all right, I’ve had some really good experiences with acupuncture. Maybe I would also like to work with an acupuncturist to complement all of this other healing that I’m doing.
And, immediately, there’s a deep discomfort. And I listen to my discomforts. I always check in with them. That’s a lesson I’ve definitely learned. [laugh] Don’t ignore your discomforts.
So, I check in with the discomfort. Ooh, is it that you don’t really want to go, Natalie, to acupuncture? No, no, no, that’s not it. It sounds great. It’s just, ugh, that’s so much—so much time, money, receiving, all the things.
And that’s when I will cast the spell. I am growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing myself. And that spell keeps me growth-focused and, very importantly, it reminds me that the tendency I’ve been living with—the tendency to get by; to convince myself, no, no, you have plenty; you don’t need anymore—that tendency it’s not something inherent in me. That is not just the way I am. That is a pattern I’ve been enacting for decades.
And let’s just think about it as a pattern for a moment—dot-dot-line; dot-dot-line; dot-dot-line; dot-dot-line—I’ve been doing that pattern for decades. And, so, when I say, dot-dot-line-line; dot-dot-line-line-line, each line being receiving, being resourcing, I am beginning to create a new pattern. And at first, there is that disruptive feeling—dot-dot-line; dot-dot-line; dot-dot-line-line. The system is like what? And it wants to go back to dot-dot-line; dot-dot-line. [laugh]
But the more I can say, no, I’m actually—I’m growing out of that pattern, I’m establishing a new pattern, before very long, my dot-dot-line-line; dot-dot-line-line begins to integrate. It begins to shift my rhythm. And, lo and behold, now, the tendency has expanded.
And, I mean, listen, how do you think I finally ended up in a place [laugh] where I had a personal trainer and a PT and a massage therapist? There was repatterning even to get to there. Once upon a time, just hiring a trainer to help me felt like so much. And I think you’ll recognize that, my friend, right? I know that there are patterns you’ve already begun to shift and, yet, you are still growing out of an old pattern that no longer serves, an old pattern that won’t get you where you’re going.
You know, I do also want to say that, you know, I did want to give a second example too of a way that I am growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing myself, and that is just asking for simple household help. I mean, you might smile at this. But, for me, it’s a really big deal to say to my partner, “Hey, could you go get the groceries, including my 11 gallons of filtered water [laugh] that I need for my plants and humidifiers and my own body?” [laugh]
Right? That feels—you can hear me giggling. It feels like a lot to ask. Again, I’ve been honored, I’ve been rewarded for not needing anything from anyone, for taking care of myself. And, yet, that pattern of under-resourcing, of giving more than I receive, of doing more than I rest, of offering and handling more than I ask for help, it does not align with my values, and it will not get me where I’m going.
All right. So, how will you personalize this spell for you? I will say, I really needed outside eyes. I needed my coach’s assistance in identifying the pattern that I was outgrowing, because the pattern was so established in me that I couldn’t even see it. I was so close to it, I could not recognize it. So, when you’re customizing, you might ask—ask a coach’s help; ask a therapist’s help; ask a friend’s help in figuring it out.
But to get a head-start, here are two questions. Number one, where do you have trouble doing what you want? Where do you have trouble doing what you want? Like, the clients I talked about at the beginning of the episode, I want to be decisive. I want to just make a decision. But it’s really, really hard for me to do it. I want to just jump in and give it a try and trust myself, but it’s really, really scary. So, that’s what they want to do, and that’s what they’re not able to do.
So, you might look at specific places, right? So, for me, it was like hiring an acupuncturist. That’s what I want to do but I’m having trouble. Hiring a housekeeper, that’s what I want to do but I’m having trouble. Asking for help at home, that’s what I want to do but I’m having trouble.
The second question is, what is no longer working? What’s no longer working? So, my friend, who loves to work, has always worked, over-works, has gotten to a point where I can’t focus the way I used to; has gotten to a place where I used to be able to dive into a project, and just push it all the way to the end, and now I dive in and I get lost because I’m tired.
So, finding the specific places where you’re getting frustrated or where things aren’t working the way that they usually do, and from there, it’s just a matter of connecting the dots. Hmm, what do all of these things have in common? What’s the commonality I’m seeing here? What is the approach I take in all of these situations?
So, for me, it would be I do it myself. I do it myself with little-to-no help. I do it myself with little-to-no help. OK. Cool. So, I’m growing out of a pattern of under-resourcing myself. I do want to remind you that we’re going for steadiness on the growth edge because the growth edge is uncomfortable.
Listen, you have been rewarded for the pattern that you’re growing out of, right? Especially if it’s in the vein of you doing more and receiving less, our exploitative cultures are set up to applaud you for that, to encourage more and more of that. So, when we are letting go of this sticky blanket [laugh], we really are letting go of something that we know has given us praise and acceptance in the past. And, of course, a pattern itself is comfortable. We sort of know how it works. We know what to expect.
And, yet, here we are on the growth edge. It’s brought us to the growth edge, and we can’t go further with the same pattern. And maybe that’s the last piece here. How do you want to feel? Who do you want to be? What are the values that you want to bring to life, to your life, and even more to the world?
I do want a world in which we are resourced. I do want to be decisive. I do want to learn to rest. I know I can work. I’d like to see if I can rest, right? So, when I’m out on the edge looking into who and how do I want to be, I’ll find steadiness in knowing that I am growing in that direction, out of a pattern of what no longer serves, and into a new way of being that serves everyone better.
All right, my friend, go create your customized spell for steadiness on the growth edge. I am growing out of a pattern of—you should totally write and tell me because I would love to know. Thanks so much for listening. 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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