Natasha Jean-Bart
3 min readApr 5, 2021

Growing Pains — A Metaphor For A Transcending Life.

Photography Janel Blanco-Jean-Bart

It’s painful to grow up, but your body adapts. It stretches the bones until you are fit to “work.”

We are all guilty; we are all participants, we all have “work” to do… no one is excluded. NO ONE.

Grow up

Wake up

Clean up

Show up, said Ken Wilber.

It’s been a challenging few months, to say the least. Thanks to the pandemic, I have been stabbed in the nose five times, and it hurts like hell since (she said) my nose cavities are so small (my head is tiny… I know), but nothing compares to giving birth to a child, so I can feel the pain, get angry and get over it.

That’s what I did, get angry and got over it. Find the pain, feel it, heal it, and move forward. Transcend it.

Life is the ultimate teacher. You can’t fix what you aren’t seeing, and you can’t soothe a wound by looking away. Pain is a shapeshifter. You get over it when you can contrast your new experience with an old one. As an observer and experiencer, pain shows up on time for you to prepare for that next step. If you do the work, you may get a clean slate. Looking at other people’s flaws will not alleviate your pain. In time, it will amplify it.

“Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid and what to seek. When you have learned this, you will find the answer that makes the need for any difference disappear.” — A Course in Miracles.

Growing is not a process that happens outside of us. Remember, there are hidden maps running our narratives. What is it that keeps us stuck in beliefs indoctrinated by others? All these things we often believe are not even real.

It’s essential to stop identifying with concepts and systems that injure us. The way we speak, what we believe, what we think we stand for, needs to be observed; if not, you get entangled in them and never see that you are enslaved by the beliefs instilled in you without your consent. Soon you will be passing down these belief systems to a whole new generation. That’s tragic.

It’s painful to grow up, but your body adapts. It stretches the bones until you are fit to “work,” with a womb or not.

It’s the mind that needs help. Waking up from the conditioning is hard. It’s even harder if you refuse to listen, refuse to learn, refuse to get out of your own way.

By all means, if you feel stuck, find all the ways that will help you wake up from the illusions you willingly accept. It starts there.

Wake up.

Deconstruct all your beliefs.

Clean up the mess.

Then show up.

Transcendence never negates what has come before; it always finds a way to integrate its true value while adding new dimensions and insights to the original form (it also, by the way, deletes all the unnecessary stuff).

If you are missing the foundational pillar that holds the second story of your home, will that story stand in 20 years?

What are the missing building blocks inside your life?

Seektash.

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Natasha Jean-Bart

Dancer. Educator. Mother of 4. Grandmother of 5 — Eternal seeker & Lover of Words.