Do you ever feel like you’ve plateaued?
Recently a student recovering from an injury was disheartened because she had been told that many people get to a stage of recovery where they plateau. I hear this from students regarding their yoga practice sometimes. ‘I feel I’m just stuck, I feel I’ve plateaued …’ and its usually accompanied by a sense of disappointment or failure.
The dictionary definition of plateau is ‘ a period of little or no apparent growth’ and here’s why I’m not a fan – we forget the word ‘apparent’. Our ego jumps in and lets us know that we are not good enough, that we are failing in some way, that we could do ‘better’.
But just because we can’t see what is happening, whether that’s within ourselves , others or even out there in the world, it doesn’t mean we aren’t continuously evolving or that change isn’t happening. Change is a fundamental part of life.
We plant a seed and it takes time to germinate. From above it seems as though nothing is growing but it is. A rose bud, tight and closed – takes time to blossom.
We grow, we notice and then we take time to ‘get to know’ this new version of ourselves. Only then, after a period of consolidation (which is part of any growth process) we can move again into a more visible time of growth. So not a big fat failure, in fact a necessary part of moving forward.
We are simply getting used to/ getting comfortable with, the step forward we’ve taken. And when these changes have become steady and stable – when we have ‘grown into’ them, they become our new foundation and we are ready to continue our journey.
We can become stronger and more resilient, we can find more healthy ways to deal with lifes ups and downs or we can learn to let go of those things that no longer serve us. Sometimes growth comes in the guise of physical strength and resilience but often the real growth comes when we understand that some or our biggest steps forward are only obvious to us after we have taken them.
To plateau doesn’t mean changes aren’t happening, it just means that in this universe of infinite potential, that we aren’t noticing…yet.
