Learning to Love Personal Growth

Image Courtesy: Strike Magazine Tallahassee

Let’s face it: personal growth isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t face masks, gym selfies, home-cooked meals, and buying new clothes (although those parts are cute and fun). In reality, personal growth often involves deep discomfort, grieving the person you once were, relationships ending, and various other struggles. As much as we all love to romanticize self-improvement, genuinely growing as a person can be a scary and profoundly difficult journey. I’ve been experiencing this first-hand for the past few years, but not until very recently did I learn to love my era of personal growth, rather than run away from it.

Image Courtesy: Pinterest

My first year of college was the first time in many years – and only the second time in my entire life – in which I underwent fundamental internal changes. Unlike the development of my style and core beliefs which I set in motion at age twelve, the changes I experienced at eighteen weren’t intentional. I slowly started feeling like a completely different person than I used to be, but I didn’t want to change! I spent so much time grieving the “loss” of my past self, questioning everything about the new stage of my life and the decisions that led me here, and resisting it all. I struggled with friendships, mental health, identity, self-expression, my purpose in life, and so much more. Moving to Tallahassee to attend FSU was a head-first dive into the deep end of self-discovery, and I soon found myself drowning.

These struggles lasted quite a while. My college experience has been fun and all, but it wasn’t until this semester – my third year of this growth period – that I was truly able to see, understand, and even love this process. I’m in a stage of my life now where nothing is more important to me than my personal growth. I’ve become comfortable with the thing that used to make me the most uncomfortable.

So how did I get here? In all honesty, the most recent developments in my transformation were onset by a brutal awakening. In the aftermath of the most intense romantic connection I’ve ever had, my brain’s constant bombardment of thoughts and emotions completely overwhelmed me. I was so overstimulated that I no longer felt attracted to tons of bright colors and patterns, crazy loud music, or huge social circles. For the first time in my life, I found myself attracted to minimalism. I just wanted a blank slate. Through that desire, I realized that my expression through fashion, my taste in music, my relationships with other people, my home décor, my lifestyle, and my membership in certain organizations – none of that defines who I am. Neither do my emotions, thoughts, or experiences.

Image Courtesy: Pinterest

Who I am is inherently within me. Nothing external can define who we are on the inside; it isn’t a concrete thing to be seen, it’s a soul to be felt. I no longer feel the need to run from change, because I understand that who I am on the inside – my soul – can’t be changed by what happens around me. These realizations are part of a gradual disidentification with the ego, which has allowed me to accept and even cherish changes as they arise. I’m no longer attached to these external forces as things that make me who I am – I no longer identify with them – so I no longer need to worry or grieve when they change. By conquering my fear of change, I conquered my fear of personal growth.

Learning to love personal growth is far from easy, but it will change your life if you let it. I’m in a stage where my top priority is maintaining the peace within me, and with that peace comes so much clarity. I’ve had life-changing realizations about myself in the past few weeks, and nothing excites me more than the knowledge that this journey just keeps getting better. My life looks different now from the way it did when I resisted change, and I’m fully embracing this stage of my life. My newfound appreciation of the present moment has unlocked an ability to embrace change. I’m excited about where I’m headed, but I’m way more excited about where I am right now.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, all of this has been made possible by journaling (my most sacred practice), reading (The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is currently changing my life), going to therapy, using Pinterest to consistently feed myself new inspiration, and listening to Jhené Aiko (my birthday twin) like my life depends on it.

Strike Out,

Writer: Cristina Angee

Editor: Addy Crosby

Graphic Designer: Margaux Campion

Tallahassee