Growth is an essential and integral part of life. We live in a universe that is continually expanding.  Everything in the Universe and on the planet is continually growing.  Seeds become plants.  Plants grow, flower, come to fruition and before their life cycle is over, produce seed for the next generation of plants.

And because we are created out of this same life force, we are continually growing and expanding – at least that is our nature, it’s what we’re coded for – to continually grow and expand.

Of course, we are unique from the rest of creation…as the “Divine-beings-in-a-human-incarnation” that we are…we have this beautiful thing called free will, and, even though it is our nature to grow and expand, we sometimes we get stuck and choose, consciously, or unconsciously not to grow.

And here’s how we get stuck:  growing and expanding requires that we break out of the box we’re in – and that requires breaking out of our comfort zone.  We, as members of the human race, like predictability and…we like comfort.

We all have our little boxes that we get stuck in.  Sometimes it about physical comfort, but mostly it’s mental and emotional comfort — what we’ve become accustomed to…ingrained beliefs…what we believe our “place in live” is.  For example, some are stuck in the box that says “I’m middle class.  My parents were middle class. I don’t even know what it would be like to have a limitless amount of money or phenomenal success.” Or the box that says, “My business always stays at a certain level, I just can’t get beyond that level.” Or the box that says, “This is just how my marriage is.  My spouse and I don’t communicate anymore.  Nothing changes.”

We get stuck in these patterns and our lives become defined by them.  The good news is that the Universe has a way of challenging our stuckness.   The writer and artist, Anais Nin one wrote: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Seeds must break out of their shells to live as nature intended them.  Baby chicks must break out of their comfortable little shells if they would live.

Breaking out of our box is a lot like the baby chick’s journey as it breaks out of its shell.  Like the chick, protected yet cramped, inside its shell, we don’t know the magnificent world that is waiting for us on the other side….but we can begin catching a glimpse of it through the process of visioning.  And once we do, like the chick who hears the peeps of her little brothers and sisters, it will give us the strength we need to pull away the fears, doubts, and unbelief that will try and get in our way when we begin to break out of our self-imposed confinement.

Tomorrow I will write about how we can successful silence the voice of our fears and self-doubts and finally break out of the box we may be stuck in.