The Joy of Growing Up: Growing Up for Grownups Who Haven't Grown Up Yet [Paperback]

Growing up is an ongoing, challenging, exciting and satisfying journey. In this book, Wendy Freebourne takes you through that journey, step by step, giving you the tools you need to navigate it successfully. She shows you how responsibility, chosen carefully and taken on willingly, brings freedom and fulfilment; and how, although your physical abilities change as you get older, this does not mean that illness and infirmity are necessary results of aging. This book is written in an insightful, practical but gentle and compassionate, spiritual style. It gives a holistic overview, while also paying attention to practicality and detail. You will find realistic advice for moving into a maturity that is not painful or burdensome, but joyful, if also less predictable than you were brought up to believe it would be. It gives models for growing up in the twenty-first century. '. . . elucidations of how and why we function within a sometimes highly dysfunctional world and how we can do that more effectively have led me to revelations, research and new training opportunities.' Fraser Trevor MSc, Addiction Counsellor and Research Scientist

Wendy Freebourne was born in 1947 in East London, where
she started her education, mainly in the University of Life. She is a practising psychotherapist in Bath, England.

1

YOU DON’T GROW UP

‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was greater than the risk it took to blossom.’
– Anaïs Nin

What Do I Mean By Growing?
Growing is a lifelong process of becoming more of who you are. You gradually blossom, expanding and extending yourself on all levels, the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. It is natural that you want to do this because it gives you the pleasure that comes from achievement. You feel yourself being stretched by the challenge of going further than you have been before. This is exciting. However, it may mean taking some risks, facing the unknown, living through periods of transition and uncertainty and allowing changes to happen. I will explain how to manage change and uncertainty in the next chapter.

Moving from Comfort to Pleasure

‘Without a sufficiently secure base, we feel anxious;
without the opportunity to explore, life is boring.’
- Lavinia Gomez

Taking risks means leaving what feels safe, because it is familiar. It means exploring something new. This is the way to greater independence and maturity. Safety and familiarity may feel comfortable, but they can become uncomfortable, restricting and stunting, even suffocating and painful; something you grow out of, like a pair of shoes that have become too tight for you. Safety and familiarity can also become boring and frustrating. Then growing becomes more appealing. Even if you are apprehensive at first, it ultimately gives you pleasure. In order to grow, you need to make choices in your life. As you grow older and more capable, you no longer need the kind of safety you did before. You can choose between comfort and pleasure. If you are stuck between the two because you are afraid to move forward, then you need to look at your security, inner and outer.

What You Need to Grow
You need security to grow effectively, to be able to take risks, to be spontaneous and creative. Children need dependable caring and parenting, and a stable environment to grow up in. If you have had this, you are more likely to be a secure and stable person. You are more likely to be capable of finding and creating a consistent and dependable social environment; one that supports and contains you and your life; one that allows you the stimulation and challenge you need to grow, as well as the freedom and flexibility to go on growing. If you have had genuine warmth and love in your childhood, you are more likely to be a warm and loving person; able to care for yourself, nourish yourself and get the additional nourishment you need from your adult environment and the people in it; then you will have inner, personal security and outer, social security. If you were loved, you will feel confident in what you do. You will believe in yourself and your abilities. In subsequent chapters I will explain how you can parent yourself now and make your adult environment safe and supportive.

If your adult environment supports maturity, your life is more likely to be satisfying, even if it is challenging. If it encourages dependency, then you may have comfort, but you will have less chance of fulfilment. Many of you may reach an acceptable level of happiness this way, but you may not reach your full potential. If you are reading this book, I suspect you want more.

Jackie was a woman of thirty who realised she wanted more. Her symptoms were telling her that.

An Acceptable Level of Happiness

Jackie came to see me with an eating problem she had since childhood, which was currently disrupting her life and affecting her relationship with her husband. She had several qualifications, a good job, a generally happy marriage, a large house and a comfortable lifestyle. But she could not control her eating and swung compulsively between dieting and overeating. She also overworked, over-exercised and obsessed about housework. Jackie was thin and slight, with a large head and big eyes. She looked like a hungry and undernourished child . . .

. . . Jackie created models that were different from those her parents had; models that supported what she wanted for herself and were also compatible with what her husband wanted. . . . She said she felt happy, even though she was no longer depending on the things she had been taught would give her happiness: food and work and lifestyle. Although these had given her comfort at first, they had ended up causing her discomfort, restricting her freedom and creativity. She had originally used them to comfort herself when she was hurting, but they had eventually become the cause of her pain.

Remember:
Comfort may ease pain,
but it does not address its cause.
It can ultimately become its cause.

Normal or Healthy
What is accepted as normal may be stable, but I do not believe it is healthy if it does not promote growth and allow for change. I intend to show you that happiness exists beyond what you may think is your socially accepted norm and that it is possible to reach for it. I will show you how to do this, without sacrificing your relationships or your security, but in fact, by improving them. You will see that, as a mature person, you can make choices about, and contributions to, the society that you live in. You can choose to live in an environment, social and material, that supports your growth. You will also see that there is a difference between stable, predictable, dependent, but limiting personal and social relationships and mature, interdependent but less predictable ones. Growth happens in cycles. During cycles of healthy growth, it is possible to keep a balance between stability and change.

For You to Think About:
Your present environment, material and social, and how it supports your growth.

‘Be not afraid of growing slowly; be only afraid of standing still.’
– Chinese Proverb