“Growth is a natural part of being healthy, both physically and emotionally.”

A thought by Mike Bechtle from his book, Dealing with the Elephant in the Room: Moving from Tough Conversations to Healthy Communication (p. 49). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Growth is another of these unmet needs in relationships that cause problems.

Mike says, “Growth is a natural part of being healthy, both physically and emotionally. But growth takes effort. When that effort feels overwhelming, some people decide it’s not worth it.”

He goes on, “We can try to ignore the natural instinct to grow, but growth takes place in spite of our efforts. Trying to stop growth is like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. We might be able to do it for a while, but it keeps popping up to the surface.

“If people avoid the effort of growth, they often replace it by being distracted. They focus on something else like entertainment or busyness to keep them from feeling the need to grow. But under the surface, the need to grow is still there.

“Someone said, ‘Busyness is the anesthetic for the pain of an empty life.’ If people ignore their basic need to grow, the result is often a life filled with activities, but inwardly they are disengaged and discouraged.”

And that is a problem because “relationships stagnate when they stop growing. They’re like the Dead Sea—a body of water with no outlet in which the salt has built up to a point that no life can survive in it.”

We need to grow, and we want to grow, don’t we?

Yes, yes!