Unbecoming to Become: The True Meaning of Growth

The True Meaning of Growth

A little reflection while watching one of my son’s silly videos and after a deep conversation with a friend:

When they talk about “growth,” I think they mean something much deeper than what we often imagine. Maybe they mean tending to the little version of you—the one that’s been silenced, suppressed, or forgotten. That little you who was told not to cry because tears were a sign of weakness. The one who was scolded for jumping into puddles, because you’re going to get dirty, even though it felt like freedom and joy in its purest form. That little you who was told that boys shouldn’t wear pink, that girls shouldn’t climb trees, and that you should only play within the rigid rules of what society has deemed “appropriate.”

Watching my son’s uninhibited joy, I couldn’t help but wonder—when did we stop living like this?

When they speak of “growth,” maybe they mean reclaiming and growing that little you. It’s about cultivating and nurturing the innate self that arrived in this world untouched by judgment. That self who acted out of intuition, who instinctively knew how to breathe the moment they left the womb. Maybe growth is about rediscovering that unfiltered, unconditioned version of you—the one who didn’t yet know the constraints of societal expectations, who had a gut-level understanding of what it meant to simply be.

Maybe true growth is about letting that self flourish. It’s about peeling away the layers of “should” and “shouldn’t,” unlearning the rules you were told to follow, and letting your authentic self take root. It’s about rising above the fear and shame imposed by others and evolving into the person you were born to be—not the version of you that was molded by obligation, but the one who is guided by purpose, intuition, and freedom.

Maybe growth isn’t becoming something new; maybe it is just remembering who you’ve always been and unbecoming what you’ve been programmed to be

Aahd