Why you should honor your natural cycles of expansion and contraction
Why you should honor your natural cycles of expansion and contraction
Have you ever pushed through self-doubt to create something you’re really proud of? Maybe you’ve published a book, given a phenomenal speech, or made a really big ask of someone and they’ve said yes? Perhaps you’ve simply been the life and soul of a party for one incredible night.
At the time, and immediately after, you feel expanded – buoyed by your confidence and as if you are on the precipice of something really important.
Your limits are boundless. Everything seems full of possibility.
And then, just a few hours or a day later, there it is.
The crash.
Out of nowhere, you spiral into shame. Instead of feeling confident and renewed, you’re raw and vulnerable; you worry you have made a mistake, that the book reviews will be bad, that your speech was misguided. All of a sudden, you want to do is cover yourself with a blanket and hide.
Anytime you push past the limit of what you are today; anytime you grow and expand; anytime you move further than is normal for you, you will experience it:
Expansion, followed by contraction.
The exchange of energy in cycles of expansion and contraction is happening constantly in every aspect of the natural world. It is part of how human beings work.
It follows breathing cycles: Every time you inhale, you expand; every time you exhale, you contract.
It follows the seasons: We have an expansion of summer as flowers bloom and days grow long, followed by a contraction of winter as trees shed their leaves and nature goes deep into the earth and sleeps.
And yet, when it happens inside us, we flee from it. We feel something is wrong with us, as if the contraction were an outcome of our own personal weakness. We question the periods of fragility that follow periods of huge expansion. We think, ‘I am feeling like this because I am not capable of more.’
Expansion and contraction and the inevitable Victory Hangover
This is particularly noticeable when you achieve something that puts you in the spotlight. You win a big award. You finally get the guts to ask for a pay raise. You land a contract to work with one of your idols. In those moments, you feel invincible.
Then all of a sudden follows this intense period of self scrutiny, this sense of I can’t believe I did that! The turnaround from expansion to contraction is lightning fast. All that intense energy that you put out in your expansive action wants to contract back to what it’s used to. It wants to go back to a safe place.
This is absolutely normal, but we rarely talk about it when it happens. All the students I've taught experience the same tendencies after a victorious moment.
At The Academy we call this sort of instant and temporary contraction The Victory Hangover!
When you find yourself with a Victory Hangover, feeling god-awful, it’s your job to treat it like you literally would an alcohol hangover or a sick day.
Let yourself go inward and take in the victory. Don’t ask yourself, ‘Did I deserve that?’
Instead, take care of your physical body and celebrate that The Victory Hangover is a sign that this was no ordinary victory. It was one that has extended you past the point you normally go.
Harnessing the power of your own cycles of expansion and contraction is one of the most beautiful things a human being can experience.
Contraction is a temporary state that is necessary for expansion.
What I see happening a lot is a desire to control the cycles of expansion and contraction. The expanded state naturally generates more positive emotions, and we want to stay there!
We want to be of service, we want to be at the heart of the action and to keep going as a good force in the world. We don’t want to dip into that vulnerable state of contraction, so we fight it.
But forcibly maintaining an expanded state and ignoring the call to contract is like taking a huge inhale of revitalising breath and holding it there. Just like our deep in-breath needs to be released as an out-breath, both states are necessary for us to feel dynamic and balanced.
When we try to cling to the expanded state, something funny happens. The energy starts to fray. It starts turning into worry, stress, sometimes even paranoia. The energy has expanded outward and held outward for so long, it wants to go back in. It wants to come home.
You cannot find greater expansion without first allowing the contraction to run its course.
Contraction is like winter. Lie with it. Hibernate. Spring will come.
Periods of contraction tend to bring sorrow, grief, doubt and, sometimes, anger. These are underappreciated emotions we like less, but there's a great beauty in acknowledging them.
The feeling of contraction is our opportunity to look for any vulnerable spots within us that we didn't even notice in the expanded state. And, until we take the time to nurture them, we won’t be able to expand out fully again.
Learning to recognise that a season of contraction is due and embracing it, rather than resisting it, offers us a “winter” of sorts – a time for hibernation and self-care.
Just as expansive states are necessary to push forth and grow, it’s in those quiet moments of contraction that our inner voice speaks loudest. Through nourishing ourselves we hear the answers we seek. Fresh ideas seem to materialize in our inky solitude.
It’s from this place of intense solitude that we source ourselves and create the energy for the next phase of expansion.
And once you've spent your time there, there's no reason to try to push out of it faster than it wants to go. Understand that the contraction is temporary, and give in to it. When you begin to expand again, a new homeostasis is created. You enter a new normal.
Harness the power of expansion and contraction.
Harnessing the power of your own cycles of expansion and contraction is one of the most beautiful things a human being can experience. Once we understand that these cycles are like breathing and trust that the expansion will come again, we can thrive within them.
Getting too fixed on either state is a source of suffering that's unnecessary. Indulging in an inward period of contraction for too long deprives us and others of the beautiful things we have to contribute. But staying outwardly expanded too long means we end up trying to give from an empty cup.
Next time you feel a contraction coming on, or are puzzled by the severity of a Victory Hangover, understand that it is just a natural part of the cycles of life.
When we satisfy both expansion and contraction, we are dynamic and balanced.
We can access the full power of our own life force.
We are fed and we feed.
We contribute and we receive.
When we satisfy both expansion and contraction, we are dynamic and balanced. We can access the full power of our life force. We are fed and we feed. We contribute and we receive.
When we can fluidly and dynamically work with both states, we get to live in full alignment with ourselves at a pace dictated by our natural rhythms, not by some forced idea of who and how we're supposed to be right now.
When we can harness the power within ourselves to create the world outside of ourselves, the game of life is afoot.
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