In a Time of Covid: Limitation or Invitation to Grow? -- By Sharon Burch

At any given moment we have a choice to either step forward into growth or step backwards into safety. How do we know the difference? We can feel it in our body.

On our journey through life, backward steps disguise themselves as feeling "easy", but they are often just like they sound: regressing, stifling, or self-defeating. Forward steps don't always feel easy, but they feel enlivening, expansive, and like we're being pulled forward. If you notice, you can see that plants do this naturally.

This principle applies to small choices like what to eat, say, or do in the moment as well as to bigger choices around career, relationships, and other major decisions. If we are serious about feeling alive and having a great life, we want to make sure we're doing more of what brings us more energy (life force) and less of what deadens us.

I invite you to take a few minutes to check in with yourself now and use the following practice to identify what enlivens you.

  1. On a blank page, make 2 columns.

  2. Label one column “Safe” and the other column “Growth”.

  3. Using free thought, list everything that comes into your mind in each of the columns. Include anything that occurs to you about foods, people, places, thoughts, behaviors, activities, etc.

  4. The