Expansion

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I’ve been thinking a lot about expansion lately. The kind of expansion that pulls us beyond the edges of our comfort zone. The kind of expansion that requires you to believe in and trust yourself. An expansion that requires a leap of faith. 

I love this kind of expansion and it scares the hell out of me, simultaneously.

For me, expansion is always a psychological, spiritual, and personal challenge. A dance between my worried mind, my growing heart, and the longings of my soul. I see a glimpse of what I can become or what I could create, but then feel flooded with fear and feel safer playing small instead of trying something bigger. So I stay put, but quickly feel stuck and frustrated. Then the pull of my soul begins again to call me to expand. I have noticed that I churn through this cycle a few times before I take a leap of faith. Do you do this too?

At its core, expansion is life’s invitation to evolve.

It is the pull we feel when we sense there is something more for us, even if we cannot yet see what it is. It is the whisper of intuition urging us to take a step forward when fear tells us to stay put.

Psychologically, expansion requires us to leave a space where everything feels predictable. The comfort zone is a place of safety, but it is not a place of growth. Expansion requires trust in yourself to leave the comforts of safety and trust there is more goodness ahead for us than we can imagine. 

Expansion examples are everywhere in nature, yet our human brains resist this natural instinct within us.

When we resist expansion we resist the very essence of life within us. 

I’ve expanded the space of my business three times now since 2017. Each time I sign a lease on a bigger space, I fear the tripling of my expenses and feel sure that no one will come, business will dry up, and my signature commits me to making a huge mistake. (I guess I should read “What if it is fantastic?” in my own book!) But, I also know that staying in place isn’t going to go well for me either. Staying still leads to me feeling stuck, claustrophobic, and frustrated until it feels like I have to expand to save my sanity. This quote by Anais Nin resonates, “And the day came when to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Every office expansion leads to my mind saying, “What if you fail? What if you’re not ready? What if this is too much?” But my soul whispers, “What if you soar? What if this is exactly what you need? What if you can help a lot more people because of this?”

I have to decide which inner voice I will listen to. Most days, it feels like I’m playing ping pong between the two. 

My inner dialogue goes something like this:

-Expansion is hard.

-But so is staying put. 

-Pick your hard. 

-Both options are hard.

-Which hard do you want to live with? 

In October of 2024, I signed the biggest lease yet for Compassion Fix, a counseling practice of eight therapists and coaches. We renovated an old Blockbuster store turned pharmacy to create eight private offices and a large classroom space. It looks exciting now on social media, but I was terrified to sign the lease. While I was in the decision process, I saw this quote by John A. Shedd: 

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” 

Reading those words felt like the longing pull of my soul to leave the safe harbor and expand into unknown waters. Thinking about what a ship is built for made me question, “what am I here for?” The answer of my soul was, “to help more people feel better, because being human seems to be getting harder.” That’s what I want to do with my life, so the expansion began to feel necessary. Still scary, but necessary. 

Here are few things that help me when I fear expansion:

  • If it feels scary to my brain, yet loving in my soul, I will say yes to it and micro-dose courage in baby steps.

  • I look for people who are expanding and creating new beautiful things and let them inspire me to grow. 

  • I talk to my fear: I know you are trying to protect me, but I will start wilting if I stop growing, you can warn me about things, but please don’t stop me from new experiences. 

  • I try to treat expansion like a new adventure - what can I learn from this, how does this help me better understand what it means to be human, what great things might I discover about myself and life? 

  • I imagine the good possibilities - If I do this it helps me step into a new version of myself, one that is wiser, braver, and more aligned with the truth of who I am. 

  • I consider who might be inspired by me taking a leap of faith - if I want my children to live in a spirit of expansion and live a full life, I have to go first. 

I invite you to ponder some of these things this week and see what you notice:

  • Everything in nature is programmed on a cellular level to grow, and so are you.

  • Where is expansion calling to you? 

  • Where are you playing smaller than you are capable of being?

  • Who benefits if you say yes to your own growth?

  • Where might you choose love instead of fear? 

  • What if you let yourself fall in love with a person, project, or idea? Fall in love for the first time or all over again. Ram Dass says, “How do you open your heart? You love that which is right in front of you, and then you just keep on expanding.” 

  • Consider pausing to look at a tree to gain inspiration on expansion. (Christian Mystic Meister Eckhart has a quote I love and I’m teaching on his ideas next week: “look at a tree and you never need another sermon”)

  • What would you do if you fully believed in yourself, your talents, and your ability to handle any outcome?

  • What might you regret not doing?

  • Where can you honor your soul’s desires by taking a leap of faith and trusting it will work out?

This email topic was inspired by our new office grand opening event originally scheduled for this Thursday. However, the weather in Kansas City requires that we postpone this event. So mark your calendars for April 10th when we are pretty confident we won’t have snow and below zero temps. We will celebrate our expansion and yours that night! 

There is more waiting for you—more love, more wisdom, more life, more thriving.

All you have to do is step forward in a spirit of expansion.

Let’s do it together,