The Consequences of Resisting Growth

“People grow when they are loved well. If you want to help others heal, love them without an agenda.”

― Mike McHargue

It's fascinating that when we invite others to move towards more healthy ways of relating, we are met with what can often be incredible resistance, and in some circumstances, absolute rejection and anger. The consequence of this response is that it can sometimes cause us to internalize the idea that it is the desires we have that are the problem. We can develop the belief that what we want is the issue… and often that is framed for us as “Your standards are just too high. You want too much.” Which becomes, “I am too needy. I am too much.”

And while there is a time to explore how ever-moving expectations can be a mechanism of control, the expectation for a baseline of respect and a mutual desire to be better is not “too much.” It's the price of admission.

Remember that when you invite others to improve their relationship with you, and in turn, the world, you're inviting one another to relate from wellness, not wounds.

And to be honest, it's hard for me to watch people in relationships who don't invite each other to be better and support each other's growth. Often what I see with most couples is that one is eager to grow and expand, and the other is complacent, resisting their partner's growth.

We don't usually see what's happening when we're in this situation, but I promise you, if you resist your partner's growth, it is the quickest path to the relationship imploding and/or infidelity.

There are a number of things to consider here when we're the one resisting the change.

What is the fear we have of our partner growing and expanding? Are we afraid someone else will love and appreciate them more, so we dim their fire? Is our response to their growth a reflection of the choices we're not making?!

When we grow we feel alive. We step towards our fears and we challenge our comfort zones. When we're the complacent one within a relationship we smother desire, we seek to put out our partner's flame because their growth often sparks a fear that our partner will outgrow us. We fear uncertainty so we try to control them and in turn control love. Woahhh...what an illusion that is.

But the magic here is that when we grow together we dive into the deeper parts of ourselves and our love for one another. The relationship, in order to deepen, requires we individually deepen, and vice versa. What we often fail to see when we act from a place of fear in response to our partner's expansion, is that we don't usually realize we're doing that until they leave. And that's when it's too late.

The only solution is this: be better. Your partner choosing you and you choosing them is not an obligation, it's an option. When you stop striving to be someone who is honouring the power of that choice, you lose appreciation for the gift that the exchange of time and presence for the love of another is.

Dive deeper into your relationship patterns — ask yourself why you do the shit you do in relationships. Always keep growing, because the moment you and/or your partner stop you begin the slow decay of the relationship. The beauty is, we get to choose, and that choice starts with looking at ourselves.

Use the potency of relationship to claim the power of your possibility. Through them. For you. For them. In that order.

Much love,

Mark