Your Growth is Not Linear

All right. And welcome back. On today's episode, I want to talk about something that I've both personally experienced and witnessed in the clients I've worked with and the many men I've sat in circle with over the years in men's groups.

And it really boils down to this simple idea. Our growth as developing conscious beings is not linear. What do I mean by that? Well, you know, off the bat, when we think of growth or change, we often think of kind of a linear line up, right? We start one place and we're slowly working our way up the spiral or road of development.

And it's not really like that. So I've experienced and expecting that is what causes a lot of pain for us as men and as human beings. And so this idea that, you know, growth is just step by step, things will constantly improve, that's really the trap. Because what it really looks like in my experience is far more chaotic. And what I mean by that is there's back steps, there's long stretches of plateaus, and then sometimes there's huge bursts of growth and change in a short amount of time.

And it's actually much more like a kind of jagged line up and then down and then up and then down and then straight across. And it's all still growth. I think that's the most important thing to remember. So in early episodes, I talked about the idea of, you know, how we grow. And two important components of that are stages of growth and consciousness, which are actually structures that emerge, and states of consciousness, which are temporary and often fleeting.

And these two kind of work with each other back and forth, where we'll often have a profound state experience that'll pop us up into a new way of being or seeing the world or being present or being grounded in ourselves that we've never experienced before. But we don't necessarily have the structure of consciousness and being and skill development underneath it to maintain that yet. But what it does is kind of gives us a preview of what's possible, which makes it then easier to work our way back to that.

So that's kind of often the, like, pop forward, pop out part of it. Now, another way to think of this is the plateau. And so this is one, whether it's personal Growth and development, skill mastery, exercise and fitness, you name it. The plateau part of this all is that oftentimes we may be putting in the reps, right?

Trying a new practice, trying a new breath, working out, honing our craft artistically. And it feels like nothing is changing, right? The results are almost kind of the same, or we don't see any difference, or we don't feel any difference, or we don't get any reflection of difference. Oftentimes there are changes happening. They're just so small and micro and we're so close to them, we don't often see them. Which is why self tracking and this idea of the quantified self movement can be really useful for growth because it can kind of break down these big leaps into smaller components that we can see.

But another way to think of the plateau is that's often where when I talk about the stage of development, the stage, the structure of the growth, that's where that's kind of being laid down, right? You might think of it as the foundation to the skyscraper. From outside, if you weren't up close, it looks like nothing is happening for a long period of time. And then suddenly this thing starts to shoot up into the sky.

And that's what I've often seen with guys who are doing the deep inner work of becoming more present, becoming more grounded, becoming more connected to their emotional body and their physical body is they'll be putting in the reps, so to speak, doing the work, but the changes won't necessarily manifest right away. And that can be frustrating, right? Doing all this stuff and nothing's changing. And that's where, whether it's self tracking or being connected to a men's group who can reflect what they're seeing in terms of your changes, because it's usually way more obvious to other people than it is ourselves, can be really powerful and useful.

So we've kind of got the, the jump up of the temporary state, right? Those just moments where life is just clicking and everything is working and we have the best game of our life or the best date of our life, or we're just crushing it on our business. And it feels magical and powerful and like a whole new level. And then suddenly it disappears, right? Again, that's oftentimes, sometimes the state has emerged to give us a taste, but then we need to do a little bit more integration or laying down of the structure to make that more permanent.

Now in the laying down of that structure, we can hit that kind of sideways plateau phase. Both of those are important, you know, the first one always feels awesome and then pretty awful when it disappears. The second one, you know, just isn't particularly juicy a lot of times or is frustrating. But it's really the third one that can be the most challenging one. And that's the kind of drop back, or as we call it, the slingshot, right?

Where oftentimes we'll be doing a lot of work or we'll be developing ourselves in some capacity, and we'll have started to make some kind of headway, and then suddenly we'll kind of regress. We'll actually fall back into all of our bad habits, or our personal bests and workouts will actually go the wrong way. We'll underperform. Rather than continuing to increase performance or parts of ourselves or tendencies we have in our thinking or emotional body, or the way we're showing up in the world that we thought we handled will kind of rear their ugly head again.

Now, sometimes this can be kind of coupled with the plateau, meaning nothing's been happening for a long time. We're putting in all the work, and then suddenly things get a lot worse. And that's like a double hardship, double frustration for a lot of guys. But I'm here to tell you that can oftentimes be the sign of the great leap that's about to happen. So a lot of the stuff I'm into when it comes to these stages of consciousness and states of consciousness, people that research them have studied human beings over long periods of time.

And what they found, particularly with development, is there's often kind of this slingshot effect where just before we totally lay down the wiring and inhabit a new way of being, it's almost like the old way of being gives it one final go. There's all kinds of reasons for this, right? One, if nothing else is.

In a lot of ways, human beings and our brains and our neurochemistry are just wired for efficiency, to conserve energy. And so if a system has worked before, a process in ourselves, our body's going to try to keep using that process instead of creating something new a lot of times. Because that newness can require a lot of energy. So as we're jumping into something new, as the big changes are about to happen, it's almost like we kind of take two steps back to fully inhabit that old way of being.

Our body kind of screams, no, we can do it like this. It'll work. It almost never does. And in fact, it becomes super clear that that way of being, that habit, that way of performing is no longer sufficient for what's next? So in the slingshot back, it's like we try really hard in that old place and then it becomes super clear that doesn't work. And that's when it kind of dissolves and we leap forward into the next way of being.

You know, I've seen all three of these structures in my life and my development. You know, I'd love to say my life has been a constant, linear, step by step path of growth and that every year things are getting better in all aspects of my life, but it's not true. There's been many years of my life where even though I was doing this stuff, not a whole lot changed on the outside or there's been years where things just got a lot worse than they had been the previous year.

Financially, romantically, emotionally, you name it. I've kind of had ups and downs in all of these different areas. And I've also had the years where more happens in six months in terms of how I'm showing up and what I'm creating in the world than has happened in the previous years. Right. So again, it's not kind of a linear way up. It's actually way more of a jagged line if we think of it in 2D.

Now, the last way I've recently kind of been turned on to in terms of thinking about growth that I really like was from a teacher that came and co led a men's retreat I was at. And he's a First Nation indigenous man and kind of been trained in a long lineage in the Southwest. And he helped us create a medicine wheel out in the middle of the desert. So if you've never seen one of medicine wheels, just a big north, south, east, west kind of axi wheel that you create with a lot of intention, and the north, east, south and west, they kind of map to the different seasons of the world and seasons we all go through in life.

And great, right? You think, maybe we start here, sun rises in the east, and then we kind of work our way all the way around. But one thing he added that I had never known before in these traditions is they actually conceptualize the wheel as a spiral. So it's actually in 3D. And so while you continually do the same rotations around the wheel at the same time, you're actually spiraling up.

So you never really retread the same place again. I just loved the idea of that, right. That there's these seasons we go through in life, the plateaus, the leap forward, the steps back, that while it may feel like the Same journey over and over. It never really is because we're doing that journey from a different place. We're actually evolving up this spiral of our being where we're becoming more whole, more love, more consciousness.

And so you're never really going back to the same place. You may be working through the same seasons or energies, but it's never exactly the same. You know, my other teacher once talked about, you know, when we do this work, when we have the state experiences, it's like we stretch. We're stretching open, right? We often see this in workshop culture or psychedelic culture. We have these big experiences and we think, oh, my goodness, everything's going to be different now.

And then we get home four days later and back in our routines, back in our world, and it's like, wham, got slingshot back. And it can be harsh and depressing if we don't know about these concepts. But as he said, you know, we stretch and we snap back, but we never snap back exactly to the same place. We're always a little more expanded than we were, even if it doesn't feel like it. And I like how that maps on to the kind of 3D spiral of the medicine wheel of seasons, of life and change and development that, you know, as they've studied how growth happens, particularly in these structures of consciousness.

Right. It really is about, wow, I'm having challenges in the world. I need to figure out new strategies to succeed in it. So we create new strategies, new ways of being, new thought processes, new relationships, and they work. They help change our experience of the world and the world's experience of us. But then the nature of the world is that new way of being has new problems with it, new issues, more nuance, different things.

And solving one problem, to an extent, we're always creating another problem. And what they found, particularly with growth and development, is we always have to keep evolving, right? The strategies we use to get us to one place won't work to get us to the next. They're not sufficient, right? So it's like we create this new way of being. It gets us somewhere, and that new place creates new problems that that way of being is no longer sufficient to solve.

And so it's just this kind of endless wheel of development. So I like to say there's just endless nuance and subtlety. You know, our changes might not be as big and explosive and cathartic as they are early on the journey of men's work, personal development, but they become more nuanced. We see more of the and feel More and experience more of the subtlety and the difference of how we're showing up in the world. And so all of this kind of, in my experience, creates these kind of seasons, like I said.

And as I work with men, the idea is not constantly be pushing hard for the most change. I just don't see it working. It burns out. We get frustrated. Instead, it's realizing that life is not one long marathon. It's often these powerful sprints, right? So it's like, make a choice to change some aspect of our life. So with guys I work with, often that's how they're showing up in dating, relationships, their marriage, their businesses, and they commit to making some big changes in that.

And that's where the structure of a men's group or a coaching program can really help because it gives us kind of a confined. Because it gives us a structured container with time limits to push ourselves forward in. And then as we grow through that and have some new openings and deep experiences, there is kind of often that break period of integration, of just putting in the reps, coasting a little bit and enjoying the process as well, right?

To actually savor the changes we have made instead of always being focused on what's not working. And so these seasons can be a huge relief for us as men, because a lot of guys I know have this feeling of I always need to be doing more, to be growing more, to be changing more. And that's just not the case. I've seen it just doesn't work in myself. It creates burnout. And it's not really how change works, right.

Instead, it's like we're kind of in the world, and then there's this slow building of, okay, something needs to change, this isn't working anymore. And then we put a lot of focus and intention and training and structure and time to making some significant changes and whatever it is we want to work on. And we kind of burst forward, right? We might have those early state experiences and really feel like, oh, my God, it's all different. And then, you know, come crashing down a little bit.

But that's always okay and always normal. And that's where we lean back on the structures, the habits, the routines we've built, the lifestyle we've now built with these new tools, new ways of being new community that help get us through that plateau phase where we're integrating, where we're laying down the foundations so that when that slingshot happens, which doesn't always, sometimes growth just goes up without that pullback. But when it happens, We've kind of put in the time and we're ready.

And so I share this because I've just seen it time and time again where particularly in some of the intensive coaching programs I do, guys will hit it hard and have these incredibly transformative experiences and then get frustrated because after the container of the program is over, it's almost like things kind of start to revert back or they aren't making the progress they want. And that's where, you know, some of the extended coaching I do comes online, where I support guys in that, like that's normal.

Just keep doing the things you're doing and it will change. You just don't know when. You just got to keep putting in the reps, putting in the reps, and at some point you're just going to show up completely differently. So in sharing this, I hope you find some ease, ease in your growth journey, ease in your path, some ease in knowing it doesn't all happen at once and it doesn't all happen in one direction.

It's totally normal for it to be bumpy, to take two steps forward, one step back, one step to the side, 40 steps to the side, to sometimes retread some of the same things over and over again in your personal growth and your development, in your evolution as a person. And while it may feel like you're totally stuck, trust me when I say as you work through those seasons, you are working up that spiral.

You're always touching them from a new place, you are changing and there's just these rhythms we all have to go through and it's totally normal in part of the process. And I know for me, learning that firsthand and through the counsel and wisdom of many mentors I've had is part of what has relaxed me on my journey, right? It's not always a straight elevator up.

There's going to be setbacks, there's going to be frustrations, there's going to be doubling back to handle things we thought we had already handled long ago, but there were still some loose ends or we didn't quite deal with that deep enough. Having the structure of a men's group, right, particularly a consistent one with guys who get to know you over time, is going to be one of the most powerful ways to support you in this non linear journey.

Because oftentimes, as I've been telling clients lately, it's usually our self sense that is the last thing to catch up. So we're so close to ourselves in a day to day level of intimacy and focus. It can often be harder for us to see the changes in ourselves because it's so subtle day to day, right? This is like when you haven't seen someone for a year or two, particularly a kid or someone growing, you're like, wow, you're completely different to them.

They're like, I don't know, I feel a little different than yesterday. But from the outside, you've seen the great change because there's that bigger gap, there's that bigger contrast. Now other men in your group are going to be able to see that and experience that because, you know, unless you're meeting daily, they're not going to have quite the same experience of you. The other great thing about being in a men's group is that that spiral, those seasons, other guys will recognize those in you and support you in those and help show you that even though it might feel like you're in the exact same place, it is different now.

It is different now. And here's why. Here's what you're forgetting or here's what you're not seeing. Had that reflected to me many times by men I trust and care about, sit in circle with. So it's important to just, you know, take note. Where are you right now? Are you in the burst, fourth stage, the plateau stage, the regression stage? You might be in different stages of all kinds of aspects of your life.

You know, for many years in my 20s and 30s, I had the often frustrating experience of between health and food, money and career and sex and relationship. I would only get two out of three at a time, right? There'd be a time where it'd be like super fit and in a good relationship, but I'd be financially hurting. Or I would be in a great relationship and making a lot of money, but at the expense of my own health.

Or I'd be healthy, making a lot of money, but feeling very alone and not getting the type of intimate connection I wanted in relationship. And so I was working all these different levels and all three at the same time until they finally started to congeal later in life, later in my 30s. And then even when they did that, each one of those aspects has had a different rhythm, has had a cycle again, where sometimes parts are up and sometimes parts are down. Overall, when you zoom out enough, when I zoom out enough in my life, it's headed the right direction, right?

But if I'm too close to it, sometimes it can feel like, ah, things are just tanking and going down and getting worse. But when I take those steps back or when men in my life kind of take that broader perspective of the growth they've seen me go through. Become super clear. Ah, overall I am spiraling up and my hope is you're getting the guidance and support and community and coaching and tools to spiral up in your own way and to get that connection with other men to help you through all those different phases.

Telling you it gets a lot lot easier and you have guys helping to ground you after the wild profound state experiences where you think everything's different or helping to keep you motivated during the long plateau or just support you and hold you when you're really struggling and down in the regression or the step back or where that old way of being just really rears its head one last time.

So I'd love to help you in your journey. You can join me for a drop in men's group at Evolutionary Men events and do some one on one shadow coaching with me. Or you can join my high end 10 week intensive coaching men's group guys around dating and relationships by watching my free Training Revolutionary Men webinar. Until next time.