Are You Pot-Bound?

I’ve been thinking a lot about growth – spring is coming after all!

Will you imagine with me for a few minutes, in service of your growth?

I invite you to imagine yourself as a small plant - a tiny oak tree, recently broken out of an acorn, very determined to grow, as all plants are. You’re in a pot. There’s a glass ceiling over you – you’re in a tiny greenhouse. You can see the sun and feel it and it encourages you to grow. And you put down your roots and you got some more. And you are being fed some by the sun and by water and by fertilizer. You grow some more.

And eventually you grow so much that you become pot-bound. That's when the trouble starts.

Do you know what pot-bound means?

It’s when the roots of a plant are growing around and around the bottom of the pot with no place to go, no place to expand into. When a plant’s roots are pot-bound, it restricts the ability of the plant to grow and thrive. So, you’re pot-bound, your roots are wound around and around bottom of the pot, just desperate to get out and reach into the world. Similarly, your trunk and branches are up against that glass ceiling of the green house. You can see the sun and are reaching toward it, but you can’t reach any further. Your branches are not strong enough to break through and so they are stunted.

You are starting to feel resentful and frustrated. Really stuck. You can see the possibilities for yourself, but you can’t break through. You know you could grow bigger if you just had the space… if you just had the room.

You imagine what that would feel like - to grow bigger, taller, with expansive strong roots. Imagine that. But you are stuck.

There’s an inevitability to growth. Just like that plant, programmed to become a large oak tree, you are designed to grow into your potential. And yet if you are in too small a container, both your roots are contained, and your height is contained. You cannot grow tall and straight with your branches reaching out, aligned with who you are inside. How sad is that? It feels very sad. A loss, for you, yes, and for your family, for your community and for the world. Very, very sad.

That pot and the glass ceiling? They are a self-imposed tiny green house that worked quite well for a time. But then you outgrew it. But you may not have had the tools to plant yourself in a bigger pot or even outside in the earth with more room to expand and grow. The greenhouse is like the old stories that you told yourself about yourself, the world and others when you were younger. Those stories might have made sense for that period of your life and may have even have helped you survive and grow at the time. But they are no longer true, and they are holding you back.

For example, if, when you were growing up, the adults in your life were unhappy, and as much as you tried, you could not cheer them up or please them, you may have developed a story about yourself, about others and about life. The story might have been; you were just not good enough to make them happy; others were never satisfied with you. In that old story, you would never succeed. Therefore, you never felt like your marks were high enough, you were never felt quite thin enough, or a good enough athlete, or popular enough. But oh, how you tried. And objectively you did achieve at very high levels, even achieving greatness in some areas of your life. But even with all that apparent success, you never felt satisfied. Never good enough.

Part of you may still be stunted, pot-bound, held back by these old stories and that part of you may be causing you a lot of pain now – lots of frustration and resentment. Your relationships are being affected. Your work is being affected. Parts of your life that might have been working well may be disintegrating before your very eyes. It is devastating, and you don’t know what to do.

First of all, please know that you are not alone in this! It is easy for me to write this note to you is because I have experienced my version of all of this story. And I have seen many clients living a similar story too.

Second, there is a way to deal with this problem that is easier than you might think. Here is the beautiful and empowering thing: you have the ability to be the author of the new stories about yourself, about what is true for you now. You have the ability to break out of the old container, that mini green house, into a wide-open landscape of possibilities, fresh air, sunshine and rain, with lots of room for you to expand into. And I am so honoured and privileged to have a process to offer you to do just that. I can help you break free and make room for you and your new stories and possibilities. Working with me, you will feel a sense of freedom and energy and possibilities for yourself that you had almost given up on. You will feel alive, radiant even, and finally feel like you are behaving in ways that are aligned with the most powerful version of who you have always been. You begin to create the life and work that you have been feeling all along was possible for you.

You can start by joining me at my upcoming Feminine Power Monthly Women’s Circle.

You don't have to be pot-bound any longer. Together, let's get you growing out in that beautiful landscape of possibilities! We need you there!

Warmly, Milisa