Fan Favorite Summer! - The Growth Curve and Integration

Grow, reach, push, hustle... keep going... keep moving... everyday we're hustling..... Ok cheesy songs aside, we're looking at personal and professional growth this week. Because there is a growth curve and we need to understand how it works if we intend to grow and develop our character, capacit, and impact. Particularly, we're looking at those times when you feel like you've hit a plateau. It's not meant to be a plateau though. 
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Transcript

Juli Wenger: 0:03

Welcome to becoming ourselves, the podcast, where we help you answer the questions Who Am I? And why am I here. And then we help you get out of your own way because the world is waiting for you to show up and own your power. You have been placed on this earth for purpose, with purpose and on purpose by a God who loves you fiercely. And he has called you to something that has been specifically created for you right now. I'm Juli Wenger, I'm a coach and author, speaker and Enneagram teacher, a Jesus lover and an entrepreneur that rocks ADHD, I am passionate about helping you step into the life you've called to, that something you know is possible, but haven't been able to reach. So buckle up, because it's not always an easy ride. But on the other side, is a life that is fired up to filled. Let's go. We're back for another week of fan favorite summer. And this week, we got to talk about something that is a favorite of mine integration and frames of reference. If you have dug into the book, there is some context here. Because we talk a lot about how we see the world through a particular lens, we see it through a frame of reference, and our ego is so attached to that way of being and that way of existing. And so what happens when we grow what happens when we change what happens when we are stepping through all of the fear and living life on purpose and in purpose and walking out our calling. There is this shift that gets to happen from an old frame of reference to a new one. And when we get through the really bumpy pieces of that people either end up in a space of plateau and backslide, or they can be intentional about their integration. So that's where we're going this week. Quick reminder, if you have not grabbed your copy of fired up, fulfilled and free, know who you are, get out of your own way and live your purpose. Go and grab that now. We'll wait. Like we could pause it you can you can go well wait, we'll wait. We'll hang out. This is one of those books that is going to shift how you view your life. We're building lenses of understanding who you are and what your purpose is, that then bring so much clarity, and so much more ease to how do I show up? How do I detach from the comparison? How do I detach from all the shoulds? In the suppose twos? How do we actually sustainably Get out of my own way? I'm pairing all of the tools together with walking that journey out with a God is like it's all a fire. Okay, all the fire. So let's jump into it and get curious about where you're at and your own growth cycle and what integration looks like for you. So something that's been showing up a lot, in my experience, the last few weeks, as I've been having conversations with clients, especially but generally with people heading into summer, is there's this desire for rest for breaks. And what's really cool about it is that I'm seeing this show up and clients who have been doing so much work. They've been focusing on themselves, they've been focusing on boundary creation, they've been focusing on letting go of old limiting beliefs and old patterns and old stories, other people's shoulds and they're getting to this space of, okay, I'm good. I'm good. I don't think I want to grow right now. I just want to stay here I want to rest and I want to have summer, and integrate what I've been learning, integrate what I've been growing into, integrate who I've been becoming, to make it fully a part of myself. And when we look at becoming ourselves, it's this process of coming home. So there's a settling that happens when we take time to integrate our growth. Now to circle back for those of you who have maybe haven't heard me talk about this before, when I look at the growth curve, I generally think of it in terms of an uphill climb followed by what looks like a plateau followed by another uphill climb and then another plateau and another up hillclimb and another plateau when you get the idea. Now, here's what's really important. And what I want to talk about today, the integration period, that season of letting it settle, of having it become part of us of rest, of allowing for less push, potentially, is just as important as the growth phase, and also is work, it's also doing the work. Because if we skip over integration, we just circle back and learn the same lessons over and over and over again, and we don't actually get up the next growth curve. So this integration period, when we get to it, this visual plateau often doesn't get the credit it deserves. When really, if we're looking at it from a place of intention, which is really the opportunity that's presenting here is to be intentional, we can see that this period of time is all about really letting the foundations that we've been building for this next up level, these new patterns, these new beliefs, these new boundaries, these new default settle and solidify, it's about if we've been growing boundaries as part of our growth curve. Sitting with the boundaries, holding the boundaries, not necessarily doing a whole bunch of new boundaries work, because that's a new growth curve, but main taining standing in standing our ground on if we have been learning to let go of perfectionism, it can really be a space of practicing. And where this space or this time period gets a little bit sketchy is if we try to bypass it and go into our next growth curve. Or if we don't approach it from a place of intention. So let's talk about the first one if we try to bypass integration. And we've been working on let's keep with the boundaries example, we've been working on setting new boundaries, but we haven't really practiced them long enough for them to become habit, we haven't sat with them and made them part of us enough that when they're challenged, we don't struggle with them. Now, if we bypass and someone pushes our boundaries, we're going to be a lot more likely to let them slide we're going to be a lot more likely to regress, we're going to be a lot more likely to go into old default patterns, which is part of what can cause the loop back down the growth curve to the base of it and us being like, but why am I here still. If we approach our integration period from a space of not being intentional, and just kind of shutting down and saying, I'm just gonna do nothing right now, because good is good, okay. Let's just remember that goods the enemy a great, and that that unintentional space, also has us default into old patterns, again, have as a default out of taking good care of ourselves out of our mindset work, which is such a strong base for us to be able to hold things like boundaries. And then we wake up one day, and either we've never started up the next growth curve, because we got so complacent just hanging out there in the Plateau. Because that's what it turns into when it's not a place of intention, or intentional integration. That we never went anywhere. We never lived our calling, we never stepped into our dreams, we didn't do the growth, we didn't make the impact in the world. So both angles, however we look at it are not actually serving us. So let's circle back to approaching integration periods with intention. Just like we approach our growth periods with intention. When we go through growth, what do we bring into play? Well, for me, that's been accountability and make sure I have coaches, I'm talking through things I'm working through my feelings, I am leaning into trusting myself more. I'm building an accountability surrounding myself with community. All of that still important in an integration period. There is still accountability required on are we being intentional, are we showing up to our own integration? Are we showing up to really make these new parts of ourselves part of ourselves or not? And if we're not, then how do we get back on track and keep that integration period from turning into a plateau? We need to surround ourselves with people. Because when we're in that space when we're in that integration, what feels like a flatline? For some of us who are high achiever, that flatline is? Hella uncomfortable, right? We surround ourselves with people that can call us out, that can call us up that we can talk to and say like, Hey, this thing's showing up. Because guess what shows up in integration, our ego. The whole point of the integration actually bringing up ego is for it to attach to our new way of being. Because a lot of what happens in the growth curve in that upward climb is we're fighting with our ego. We're actively at battle with our ego. And with its stories, because it's attached to our existing way of being and we're choosing to change it. And to say, no, no, that's scary over there, I don't want to do that. I don't want to change, I don't know what's on the other side of that change, I have no frame of reference for it. So we get to the integration phase, and it feels like rest because we're not battling with our ego so much. But when we start to look at the potential growth, it still remains, when we start to look at that next growth curve. And our egos attached to our new way of being, it's gonna show up just like it did with the old one. Because our ego doesn't learn its lesson, it's gonna kick and scream and fight all the way up the next growth curve. But I'd rather be fighting with a newly aligned level of my ego, that grown up a little bit, that's taken its old space and detached from that and reattach to something new and more aligned, than be dealing with that initial level of it in the first place. I'd rather be dealing with an ego who's attached to my new level of boundaries, because it understands now that it has a frame of reference, we're building frames of reference and integration, we're building frames of reference all the way up the growth curve, it understands that it's safe there, it understands that this new space is safe, and it's okay. And we can exist here so it can reattach. What's interesting, as I'm thinking about this, here is this question of does our ego have memory? Right? Because when you look at how it reattaches, and it fights, it doesn't want change, it wants certainty, and it wants definitiveness. And it wants control, right? It's like, it's still fighting for those things at this new level. So it feels kind of like it doesn't have memory, right. And at the same time, I'm getting all like, philosophical hair on you. But at the same point, what I've seen and what I've experienced going through the growth curves is that it gets a little easier, on some levels, not all levels, but some levels, for my ego to detach as I lean into more growth, because it has that memory of okay, we did this before. And it was okay last time, which I suppose just brings us right back around to that frame of reference concept. That because we've built a frame of reference of going through a growth curve, that there's some level of comfort and resilience that exists there. And it's really resilience plus courage that allows us to live our passionate and purposeful and powerful lives. So retraining, retraining our ego, or building these frames of reference all the time. And we got to allow those spaces and those times to sit with and become solidly become ourselves. So what I want you to take away from this is that it's not that this period of time isn't important, it's that it's vital. It's not that the growth journey gets easier. But as we build more frames of reference pieces of it well, it's not that you get to opt out of your growth spaces and your communities and your accountability. It's that you leverage them in a different way. Your energy can change. So let's get a little bit personal here for a minute because it's July. It has been smokin hot, where I am for the last week or so. You And sometimes I joke that Elsa was my princess, because I'm pretty sure they based frozen in Denmark, or somewhere there abouts. And my, my family has roots there. So I often joke that like, I'm not built for this heat, the Scandinavian in me is just not not equipped to cope with 3738 degree temperatures. It's lovely on a beach in Mexico when I can go jump in the ocean. But even then I'm high note in the air conditioning in the middle of the day. So we've been going through this a week of heat, having some time off around the long weekend. And I have wanted to do a whole lot of nothing. And I had to get curious about that and say, okay, am I just taking a couple of days off? Or is this a season of rest? And is this an integration period. And where I've landed an am landing, because it's a continual evaluation, is that I am not so much in a season of rest. But I've been in a season of recovery, because I pushed for so many years. And when I talk about the real estate industry, and I talk about building that whole business for 10 years, it was from a place of push all the time. So I routinely run into seasons. And we're not talking like spring, summer, fall winter, we're talking about just periods of time where I feel like I need more rest, so that my body can recover so that I can learn new patterns. And when the growth happens quickly, sometimes we need more regular spaces where we're having integration and we're having rest. For me right now that's not it. For me, when I look at it right now, it's self protective. And this is where we get to get curious about what phase are we in? Without having my assistant is given my ego a lot to feed on around, I don't have capacity. There's a story that shows up, I don't have capacity, I don't have the time, I don't have the space, I don't have the energy. I can't. And when I can't shows up, what are we actually saying I choose not to. So as I'm stepping back into this week, after some real legitimate rest over a real weekend, which is still kind of novel for me to not be selling houses and working weekends and evenings. It's this choice to say, Okay, I'm going to choose to show up, and I'm going to choose to step in because I am in a growth cycle. I'm not in an integration cycle. But I do see a lot of clients right now saying, you know, it's not about dreaming for me right now. I just want to be, I just want to hang out with my family more, I just want to be more present, I want to enjoy the weather, I want to allow this flow that I've created to exist. And we honor that too. Both spaces are beautiful, and both spaces are needed. But it's prompted some really interesting conversations. What is it you need? What is it that your body that your intuition that your heart is telling you that you need? What is it that God is telling you that you need? There's been a lot of time over the last two years, where the answer to that question for me has been Rest, rest. Just lean back, let the waves carry you be held. And then there'll be other times like right now and some of you will be here with me to where it's not just rest. It's to find a harmony where rest is a continual piece of the equation. But it's not that I'm in an integration phase and you might not be either. So get curious about it. Get curious about the intention, get curious about the emotions that show up or the resistance or the tension that shows up when you ask yourself the question of what phase in the growth journey Am I in? Am I in an up the curve space? Am I in an integration or plateau space? And what is my intention for each? Because we get to choose? We get to choose what our life looks like. We get to choose how we show up. And we do have control over how we feel. We do have control over our energy and we get to choose what stories we assign to periods and seasons of our life. Do we choose to assign I'm supposed to be pushing all the time should be enough Do we choose to allow for seasons where we take the foot off the pedal a little bit. And we breathe. And we just appreciate and sit with and become stronger in all of the growth that we've already experienced until it's time to level back up. And you'll know I hope this episode stirred something up in you or gave you some hope. Until next time, know that you are in it everything in you that has been placed in you has been put there to help you carry out the calling that is on your life. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please please please hop into wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a positive review for us. And any links that we mentioned during the episode will be in your show notes. So make sure to check those out too. Until next time, be love. Be joy. Be strong and courageous and be too much. I dare you