In Defence of Wholeness: Countering the Epidemic of Performative Growth
If you’re constantly at your limit, are you really free?
I noticed myself walking a familiar path recently: courting extreme emotional peaks and dramatic troughs. I’ve suffered enough to last a lifetime, so when something feels harder than it needs to be, or challenging in a way I don’t value, it piques my curiosity.
I’m sitting in a circle at an embodiment retreat, I notice someone across the room having a massive emotional release.
“Ooh,” a little part of my brain says (completely outside my conscious awareness) “that looks like fun, maybe we should be doing that too.”
Off I go, trying to one-up them.
Over the next few days, I force myself into higher highs, lower lows and bigger releases. Instead of experiencing clarity, I get more confused and rather than coming home feeling stable, I feel like I’m crashing after a sugar high.
The myth that bigger always equals better is making itself known through the healing and personal development world. Maybe it’s a pendulum swing from centuries of emotional suppression, but it feels like we’re all trying to outdo each other: hours of primal screaming in circle, blood-smeared bodies and overt displays of sexuality in person and online.
On one hand, our Souls love breaking out of chains and we’re probably coded with competitiveness to help us land the visions we came here to deliver.
And… I also think there’s a survival mechanism at play here. At least, there has been for me. I don’t feel good enough as I am, so I have to compete and consistently excel to maintain my place in the tribe, even if it means exhausting myself.
Despite hurting our bodies and souls in the long run, high-control groups like cults can (and do) weaponize this desire to grow against you. (You’re so hell-bent on surpassing your limits, you forget your center.)
What if, in the same way humans escape painful ecological realities through ideological extremism, we also skirt the deeper, more intimate, work of loving and revealing our true selves, by consistently going to the outer limits of our self-expression?
In my experience, true healing and transformation doesn’t come from continual radical catharsis. The most effective growth work is sacred, and sacred work doesn’t require any more of us than we actually have.
So… How can I tell if I’m striving for mastery or driven by a compulsion to prove myself or compete?
Here are some questions that help me:
Is this the experience I want to have because I value it? Is it life-affirming, or am I tolerating this now because of some idea about what I’ll get and who I'll be when I get through it? “I’ll be strong later,” is a way to make meaning out of suffering you’re already in, but you don’t need to perpetuate the cycle of suffering to generate strength.
What state am I running to or from? Can I cultivate it now? What, from the fantasy future I’m imagining, can I embody in the present?
Is this action taking me closer to myself, or further away? Is it cultivating self-love, and trust, or eroding it?
Is the energy I'm investing in different areas of my life proportionate, or does it feel a little out of whack? Is there something in the background of my life that’s calling out for my attention? What am I in resistance to? Can I, slowly, with gentleness, accept the resistance long enough to let it speak? How healthy are my relationships? Is any success that doesn't include health, actually success?
Can I stop? What emotions arise when I do?
Am I putting padding between myself and Life? Consuming to seek comfort (food, coffee, alcohol, tv, sex, social media) as a substitute for integrity?
Can I trust the timing of my life and go at my own pace? Why? Why not?
Is this vulnerability or over-exposure?
Is the desire to do this still present in a place of whole-hearted devotion to yourself? Madeleine Burgoyne
At the same retreat, another woman keeps excusing herself. She lies down and wanders in to join the group a few hours later. It takes me a while to realize she’s not missing out, she’s tuning in.
Exploration and self-expression are wonderful and necessary but going all out at the expense of your health isn’t liberation, it’s also not “wild”.
If you're feeling a bit exhausted by the growth culture or your journey has felt a little "off" and you're hankering for a taste of the sacred, take note:
Wisdom knows when to say when. Get a feel for your inner limits and practice staying within them. You don’t need to be the loudest or “wildest” in the room or online to be worthy of love and attention and you don’t need to be or feel extraordinary to have value.
The closer to your inner light you are, the less you need shiny things. Stay devoted to your own regulation and heart.
You don’t need to move any faster than what feels good. You don’t need to be any further ahead than you are. You’re allowed to have “whole, balanced and sane” as your guiding lights.
Healing happens in daily devotion: small, consistent acts of self-care, underpinned by a willingness to accept and meet yourself where you are.
Something a mentor said in the season after this retreat has stayed with me.
“Beings in the highest light aren’t doing whatever they want, they’re staying within certain parameters. They don’t need to go to extremes; they know their place. It makes it easier.”
The more I dismantle my own need to feel superior, the less pressure I feel, and the less stock I put in the superiority of others.
When I stopped over-reaching, I learned pretty quickly my capacity was smaller than I thought, but that’s okay, because what I have is enough.
The relief of knowing I can be of service without strain, is other-worldly. I trust I’m growing, but I’m not chasing a result, and I can devote myself to what I love, knowing I’m less likely to be consumed or possessed by it (a common side-effect of going outside your comfort zone all the time) and when someone thanks me for my work in the world, I can genuinely say, “it was a pleasure.”
The moon does not fight… it keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished. Ming-Dao Deng
Ultimately, it’s all okay.
The Soul, like a homing device, will always call you back to equilibrium. Whatever poison you’re ingesting, you’ll find the medicine in it, your vices will fall away when there’s no longer a use for them and the people who are ready to receive the gold you have to offer will feel it, just like you’ve seen and felt it in others, without you needing to over-exaggerate or compromise your integrity to reach them.
