An Invitation to Expansion
SM post yesterday
I realized as I laid in bed this morning thinking about things, that my SM post yesterday was probably not my most supportive moment for my clients or potentials. I mean, NO ONE wants to be called out on lazy. But TBH the part of this quote that I REALLY liked was not the last word but the one in the middle: EXPANSION. I really like this word. In fact, if I was one to pick a word for the year, I may have just landed on it. No judgement that we are over half way through the year and I just found my word.
In this blog post I would like to invite you to step into expansion with me. Last time I went to Google to look up a word it just messed with my head so I decided to come up with my own definition of expansion in the form of six words of association: QUESTIONING, ENLIGHTENMENT, EDUCATION, SELF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT+CONFRONTATION, REPENTANCE.
QUESTIONING
I am a natural questioner. I tend to always jump to the other side of an idea…like…hmmm…if that is true then what else must be true?
I believe that most expansion begins when we begin to question what we believe to be true. This could be questions about a relationship, results in our lives, our moods, our actions or lack thereof.
Expansion can not happen without the seed of curiosity first being planted.
Sometimes I have gone looking for new thoughts or beliefs or sometimes they just appear like when I am listening to a podcast or reading a book. So many times I pick up a book certain that I know what I am going to gain from the text only to find that there is no way I could have predicted the ways that the author would expand my understanding.
ENLIGHTENMENT
Enlightenment was the first word I thought of when considering expansion because it represents the new idea or spark {of enlightening} that initiates our expansion. You have a new idea…you consider it and instantly your mind and perspective begins to expand. This goes hand-in-hand with education as enlightenment=education but I listed them seperate as I often get an idea, become enlightened and then seek more education to better understand my new outlook.
EDUCATION
Today it is easier than ever to become educated on…well, just about anything. You can probably google or youtube search any question you can think of and find someone who has taken the time to make a video or input information for the masses. This is amazing and frightening all at the same time. I find myself reading things online and instantly believing them to be coming from a valid source but I really think we need to be careful and realize that ANYONE can look like an expert online and researching our sources will save us from taking in false information. I heard someone quote a statistic the other day that I had read off an instagram post just a few hours earlier and I was a little embarrassed when I realized that I had 100% taken the post as fact without question…until I heard it quoted by someone else. As in, when I read the stat I immediately believe it to be true. It wasn’t until I caught someone else stating it as fact, that I started to question the validity of the statement. My realizing my own gullibility leads me to my next set of associated words.
SELF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT+CONFRONTATION
Acknowledging our part in a relationship, a misunderstanding, a missed opportunity or {fill in the blank} and then being able to own our mis-step is the introduction to self confrontation. I feel like I have been doing a lot of self confronting as of late which is good because I don’t think I had done much prior to the past few years. I was one of those people who felt it important to always be “right” or at least appear to have all of the answers. Not only does that seem laughable at this point of my understanding but it also feels exhausting to uphold such a facade. If you find yourself feeling defensive {alot} then you may understand where I was coming from. Getting on the defense is the opposite of self confronting. Some questions that help take me from defensive to self confronting which then can lead me to expansion are:
What else could be true here?
What am I missing?
How did I contribute, in any way to this situation?
As I self confront and own up to my part, the next step for me, is: repentance.
REPENTANCE
In the past I maintained a negative association with the word repentance, but including it in my quest for expansion feels so true to me and takes me from a feeling of despair to one of hope. Repentance allows us to turn from old behaviors to new, more enlightened ones. And the best part about repentance is that it is available in unlimited supply. If you are a religious person, as I am, we can thank our God and Savior Jesus Christ for this truth. Yesterday a children’s song came to my head and I asked Alexa to play it for me over. and over. again until I knew it, pretty well. I will include a link, if you are interested. I had to include this particular version from youtube because…are you kidding me?? 3 years old? Amazing, really. Gethsemane.
Expansion=progress. Who doesn’t want to feel like they are progressing? I 100% acknowledge that expansion comes with a level of discomfort. In fact, sometimes a very intense level of discomfort.
“He felt all that was sad, wicked or bad All the pain we would ever know.”
Somehow knowing there is one who understands our pain is comforting and that He provided us a way to be able to continue to progress no matter what.
As we are able to work through the hard, the new enlightened version of us is amazing, liberated and full of light.
Expansion, my friends. Don’t you love it?!!
xoKathleen
