We Never Stop Growing
I may have shared this before, but here it is again in case it helps someone. A couple of years ago, I was telling my therapist about some crisis I was going through and she told me something that’s had a profound effect on my life ever since: “Jason, what you’re feeling is appropriate for the developmental stage you’re in right now.”
Reader, I was 49 years old. Developmental stages are typically associated with infants, children, and teens — we use them to mark their progress along the path to being adult humans. Adolescent growth is rapid and the transitions are stark; your appearance and capabilities change so much more between ages 3 and 10 than between 30 and 37 that adulthood can feel comparatively static. Even though people keep changing in adulthood, there is some sense in which people are fully baked by the time they reach 18-25 years old.
When my therapist said “what you’re feeling is appropriate for the developmental stage you’re in right now”, it hit me right between the eyes and I knew exactly what she was trying to say. Our growth never ends. We never stop going through developmental stages — we just call them things like “becoming a parent”, “mid-life crisis”, or “perimenopause”. The pain, confusion, and emotional distress we experience is because we’re growing.
Thinking about my life through this lens has flipped a switch for me. Internalizing “this is appropriate” and “I’m leveling up” provided me with a better alternative to “I’m almost 50, I don’t have my life figured out yet, what the hell is wrong with me?” Rewiring my thought process is still a work in progress, but I feel like it’s allowed me to approach challenges more as opportunities than as obstacles, provided me with a map/plan out of dark times, and given me more room to be easier on myself.
(I hope that all makes sense. Personal epiphanies can be difficult to translate for others.)
Discussion 8 comments
This one hits home for me.
I love this. It is so great to break out of the notion that once you're an adult, you hit cruising altitude for 'developmental stages'. And from one 50-ish guy to another: I hear you.
Yup. I'm 52 and the past 1 1/2 years have been the most remarkable period of growth I can recall.
I love this.
We often think, when we’re young, that at a certain age we’ll have it figured out. And then we get to that age and life is still life, and we’re still learning and growing and changing.
But it’s hard to let go of that old feeling, that as adults we should just have it figured out. That other adults have got it figured out.
But they don’t, and we don’t, and we’re all just trucking along as best we can. I think the humility in this is really beautiful.
Highly recommend this book on this exact topic: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.d. https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322
My therapist once said to me "This is who you grew up to be." and, like you, it was like a two by four upside the head. Once I began to think about it, I was able to alter a lot of my more toxic behaviors.
I'm 50. Loved this. Thanks.
I never knew it was a developmental stage. Life is just as mysterious and interesting to me as it was when I was a teenager. Maybe more so. The hard part is accepting that everyone can change and maybe in a way that is no longer compatible.
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