Written by: Antoinette Njombua-Fombad, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Never stop growing, even if it makes others uncomfortable! Remember that growth and transformation require intentionality, discipline, practice, repetition, defiance, and cultivation. It’s not an easy process, but it’s worth a lifetime. There’s nothing more meaningful than fully embracing and utilizing self-connection and self-awareness in the journey to self-actualization.
When we grow, everyone and everything around us grows as the path to creating ourselves will spontaneously reflect our light from within onto others. We underestimate the value of individual growth on collective growth. We limit our realization of how much our growth can influence a change in the perspective of others, not just about us, but especially about the possibilities for themselves, influencing their awareness directly and indirectly whether we stay connected or not.
Growth demands struggle and will transition through different variations of highs and lows before any transformation. Although we are born with the ultimate power of choice, we often find it challenging choosing our paths independently, compared to the ease with which we choose those recommended by others. Fortunately, as our consciousness grows, we are exposed to information overload. And as we yearn for purpose and fulfillment, the desire to create ourselves and the opportunity to live more freely from within becomes most vital.
Thankfully, living through transformation comes with the blessing of spiritual freedom, influencing the intentional work of reprogramming our subconscious mind to counter, accept, adopt, and default to our evolving self. Imagine the challenges encountered as you work to alter and shift your reflex subconscious mind from overruling your creative conscious mind. If you are fully aware of how much work it took/takes/will take to learn and memorize this new construct of yourself, imagine how much more challenging it is for those around you. Their minds undoubtedly, over many years, have stored versions of you that will require updates of what, who, where, and how you now vibrate.
Whatever stage you find yourself, living in a state of balance, working toward self-awareness, or the in-between phases, I believe it is a process overwhelmingly melancholic. We enjoy living connected to our becoming while unknowingly fighting to compromise it so we can fit in. We work through the push and pull of blending in versus standing out. Unfortunately, this can be a lonely process requiring complete self-reliance, and escalating this is the feeling of betrayal and disappointment we encounter along the way, further diminishing our level of trust and commitment.
It takes understanding that we are because we are all things great and all things in progress. It takes trusting that it is okay to use everything about our being to make better choices that elevate our mindsets. Have you wondered why we find it acceptable to live life avoiding the things about us not praised by our environment, even when they add value to our identity, while often intentionally focusing on those that receive applause? Is it the fear of how others perceive us, or is it because we are afraid of our potential? Do we fear we might not be able to navigate the power and audacity that comes with such elevated levels of self?
Is the discomfort truly sourced from within us or from our subjugation to Ego? The fear or shame of failing, of disappointing others if we cannot live up to our becoming, not even the way we imagine it, but the way others perceive it? We fail to understand that that same discomfort incites the nurturing of our potential and that even the imperfect parts of our stories are paramount to growth. It takes full utilization of our identity to develop into everything we want to be. It allows for a more efficient process of intentionally improving and living more connected to the value of our beliefs throughout our self-awareness journey.
“Focus on your growth, give that more time and energy. During those moments where you fall or encounter setbacks, the very last thing you need to do is listen to that gnawing inner voice telling you that you aren’t good enough or, worse, accepting external judgment on who you are, based on a setback. That setback does not invalidate all the work and growth you have attained. The more you believe it does, the more your focus and energy will shift toward undoing your development.
What you should remember is that you have come a long way at bettering yourself. That is where the focus should always remain. Accept your humanity, grace yourself with the knowledge that it took however long to get to where you are, so the now infrequent setbacks still support your growth trend. You become what you believe yourself to be. So have faith, chin up, heart filled with gratitude, and keep healing, loving, and growing” -healloveandgrow.com.
So rather than avoiding those not so perceived perfect things about you, succumb to the bravery of understanding their purpose, and living outside a collective matrix-like acceptable existence, as growth and self-actualization necessitate fully embracing and connecting with everything about your individuality. We only have this one body, this one opportunity, this one earthly journey. So please don't waste time trying to make it something else as defined and influenced by the perception of others; that is their reality, not yours.
Awaken yourself so that you can awaken others. Live on purpose, live intentionally, and let your life illuminate others. Maintain a solution-driven mindset, practice your habits, cultivate routines that sustain your growth, stay disciplined, remain confident in your abilities as you continue up-regulating your genes, understanding that the power needed to grow is the power within you.
Antoinette Njombua-Fombad, Executive Contributor, Brainz Magazine Antoinette Njombua-Fombad is a Connection and Awareness solution-driven coach, helping individuals and groups understand the value of emotions as purposeful and vital to enhancing our perception for individual and collective growth. She is the founder of WITHIN life coaching services, a writer, storyteller, and motivational speaker working to inspire and empower individuals and groups towards a better understanding of self for improvement in areas of awareness, mindset shifting, negotiation, Identity, presentation, and confidence, using a healing-loving-and-growing approach. She is a healer who believes personal growth is crucial to all other relationships and transactional growth. Her healing and coaching journey includes a combined background in caring for individuals as a Registered Nurse and Case Manager for the past eleven years. Her practice and writings are centered around the conviction that we are gifted beyond recognition with individual capabilities often suppressed by our fear of emotions, which continue to deprive us of the lessons needed to elevate ourselves and our relationships. As our humanity necessitates endless opportunities for healing and loving environments to facilitate self-improvement in the process of our evolution, we need to keep looking within ourselves for a pathway to growing and becoming.
