What is real growth?

Real growth is not experiencing more hardships than others.

A person's real growth, I think it can be said from three levels:

1, "Seeking from within" is the starting point of growth.

The Great Compassion Buddhist Temple in Tianjin is the most unfriendly Buddhist temple, but it is also a real Buddhist temple, because when you enter the door, you will be asked: What are you doing here?

If a person mainly comes from external requirements, such as seeking others' approval and condemning others for failing to meet their expectations, it is still a state of "children", still staying in a subconscious mind where he is a child and others are adults, and has not really begun to grow up. Psychology calls this state "fixation". Of course, there are profound reasons for this state, so I am not condemning this phenomenon here, but describing it.

In addition, there are other ways of seeking outside, such as fortune telling, changing fortune, praying for Buddha, waiting for someone's redemption, expecting wealth and marriage to save themselves, strongly expecting to change others, giving love/career too important significance and so on. As long as you think the answers, strengths and solutions are all outside of you, these methods will not bring you growth and the happiness you want.

Growth comes from self-change, until one day, a person suddenly realizes that what he is pursuing hard outside can't really meet his own needs and needs to find answers and strength from himself. At this time, he began a journey of self-growth.

He began to free some space and time from arguments, desires, struggles, blind efforts and nameless pains, and began to pay attention to his relationship with the world and his self-change.

2. Reflection brings about real change.

Seeking inner truth is a starting point, but one will still enter the journey of self-exploration with his own contradictions and conflicts.

For example, he will insist on "this is good, that is not good, this is right, that is wrong, or' two'.

Some people embark on a journey of self-exploration, or practice, and then firmly believe in the theory or viewpoint of practice, or strongly expect others to accept their own theory and viewpoint.

When counseling teenagers, newly-started psychological counselors often condemn their parents together with teenagers and stand on the opposite side of their parents, just because they stick to the theories they have learned too much. Or some practitioners will stick to Buddhist dogma and righteousness, such as paying homage to Buddha statues and Buddhist scriptures. These things are done well by yourself, but you ask others and you can't bear to part with them.

Reflection began to realize why I think like this, why I feel like this, and why I am like this.

Instead of making others believe what you believe.

Such a state makes a person no longer insist on his own views strongly, but re-examine himself with a curious and observing attitude. In this case, a person's cognition and values began to really change.

For example, a person who insists that money will bring happiness will begin to wonder why I have this idea. He may find that his family was poor when he was a child, and he was embarrassed, ashamed and miserable because he had no money, so he had such a strong desire for money. When he has such reflection, his attitude towards money will change; Xiao Nan always thinks that the world is unfair. After reflection, she found that her father had always preferred sons to daughters, which brought harm to herself.

3. Commitment is the result of growth.

On the basis of reflection, one begins to realize his responsibility gradually.

This responsibility does not mean the kind of responsibility that is blindly assumed. It is not the kind of responsibility that men want, women want, children want, teachers want and students want. The latter responsibility is more experienced as pressure and even self-sacrifice.

Psychological responsibility means that a person realizes that he is responsible for his own language, behavior, beliefs and inner experience, and no longer throws the responsibility of his own behavior and experience to others.

This will also form a so-called "sense of boundaries" and become a psychologically independent person.

When a person no longer thinks that his happiness depends on another person-for example, parents expect their children's success to bring happiness, or in intimate relationships, they expect the other half to bring happiness to themselves-they not only liberate others, but also really pay attention to how to make themselves happy.

He can really take on his own life, and on this basis, to benefit and take care of others; He is still a bit "two", but "right or wrong" is not so important anymore. What is important is how to establish a satisfactory relationship and nourish yourself in the relationship; He will still work hard and create, but instead of pinning his expectations on external forces and changes, he will focus on how to experience the present life and take every step.

Growth is a process, with a starting point and no end.