The author, Yung Pueblo, discovered his path to healing after reaching the edge of death due to drug addiction and a life of pleasure-seeking. In his work, he talks about the healing journey and the power of actively working on your own growth so you can enjoy success and deeper relationships every day of your life. In this Blink, we’ll share some of his stories and advice.
Whether you’ve already begun your process of intentional growth or are just getting started, this Blink offers you actionable insights into a deeper understanding of why you react the way you do and how you can free yourself to achieve your goals in life.
Love yourself first: Self-love is where it all starts
Self-love may at times feel challenging or counterintuitive, but you truly cannot feel love from others if you don’t first know how to love yourself. Self-love means having compassion for yourself and treating yourself with curiosity. It requires being brazenly honest with yourself at all times, building healthy habits, and accepting yourself unconditionally.
What healing looks like
As you grow, there’ll be effects, whether you see them or not. You’ll experience clarity and the ability to solve problems creatively and compassionately. As we each strive to grow into better versions of ourselves, we’re elevating humanity and paving the way for a better future.
Impulsive Reactions
When you react impulsively now, that reaction is programmed based on past experiences. For example, perhaps your father disapproved of your crying as a child. Maybe instead of comforting you, he shamed you. Fast forward 30 years, and you’re at work complaining about the coffee being too strong. A coworker walks by and tells you to stop whining about it, and you’re overwhelmed by anger.
Strive For Progress
Growth and maturity aren’t about achieving perfection. Your goal is progress. You’ll experience benefits from progress, and these benefits will, in turn, motivate you to continue your journey of growth.
Here are seven signs to look out for that indicate you’re making progress:
- You’re able to pause and reflect before reacting to things that used to trigger you.
- You’re looking at others with compassion and recognizing the work they’re doing.
- You’re able to handle difficult emotions instead of avoiding or numbing them.
- You’re making choices that benefit your long-term goals instead of just what feels good in the moment.
- You’re setting clear boundaries and confidently saying no when you need to.
- You’re able to disagree with others constructively, turning it into a learning experience or conversation.
- You’re able to hear your intuition and it’s guiding you in a positive direction.
Heal Yourself first
Healing happens from the inside. How to activate it?
The most important thing you can do is allow yourself to feel an emotion without being controlled by it. Use the knowledge that this emotion is a reaction based on past experiences to pause, take a breath, and give yourself space to ride the wave of the emotion. Once the initial feeling dies down, use that space to think more objectively about what’s happening. Ask yourself, “What is at the root of your emotional reaction?” What do you want that you can’t have?
Love your partner but pursue personal growth
If you’re in an intimate relationship, it’ll help to share your intentions to pursue personal growth with your loved one. Expecting your partner to be the source of your happiness will doom your relationship to extreme stress and likely failure. Mutual love and respect, rooted in emotional maturity in both parties, are the only way for a relationship to thrive.
You have to let go
You don’t have to live in sadness, anger, frustration, emptiness, or despair. But to free yourself from these things, you have to do the hard work of letting go. The difference between what you have and what you want is where you’re living. And this letting go is what moves you out of reaction and into peace.
When you’re able to achieve this practice, you’ll not only experience inner peace but also stronger relationships.
This is not the real you
As you grow, you may find yourself letting go of old ideas or goals. You may shed old identities through the process of clarifying who you really are. Transformation is in your nature as a human, but it only happens by choice and work. We’ve created a world for ourselves that is constantly changing because we are constantly changing.
