What If Growth Includes Grief?

(air whooshes) (mouse clicks) (bright music) Headspace Studios. (bright music) (peaceful music) (birds chirping) Hi, this is Dora, and you are now listening to "Radio Headspace." Thanks so much for being here. So, there are moments in life where growth feels less like gaining and more like letting go. And even when something new is beginning, it doesn't always feel easy. Sometimes there can be a sense of loss alongside it. I remember when I did my first mindfulness-based stress reduction course. At the very beginning, they talk about the risk of practicing mindfulness, and one of them really stayed with me. They said, "As you become more aware, it can change how you relate to yourself, to others, and the world around you. And sometimes that can feel isolating because as you start to see things more clearly, you also start to see yourself more clearly in the way that you've reacted, the things you've said, the choices you've made, and not all of it feels easy to look at." And I think this is something we don't always expect, that growth can come with a kind of grief. And maybe that's what makes growth so hard at times. What we're trying to let go of is something that once helped us survive. I remember coming out of that program and noticing things in myself I hadn't really seen before, how stress would make me reactive, how I would say things I didn't fully mean, and how I would act from a place of urgency or fear or lack. And at first, it was disheartening. There was a part of me that wanted to judge it, to say, "Why did I do that? I should have known better." But the more I stayed with it, the less I wanted to judge it, and the more I wanted to understand it. Because those parts of me, the reactive parts, the impulsive parts, the parts that were operating from survival, they were learned, they were shaped by what I had experienced, and they were trying in their own way to keep me safe. (peaceful music) And in seeing and being with that, something began to change. Instead of pushing those parts away, I can meet them with something else, with a little more kindness and care and understanding. So maybe this isn't about getting rid of who we were, it's about recognizing why we were that way in the first place and allowing those parts of ourselves to be seen before we let them go. (peaceful music) And this is something we don't have to rush. This process of becoming or letting go isn't something that we have to rush. Even the parts of us that no longer feel aligned were once necessary. They helped us get through something. They carried us in ways we might not have realized at the time. And it can be interesting to notice what feels like it's changing for you right now. What patterns or reactions or...