Growth Periods and Psychic Development
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi
Growth Periods are significant events in an individual’s life where there is discomfort, pain, and suffering. It may feel like the free fall, the tipping point on a roller coaster ride, or appear in a softer way. During these times, spiritual growth exceeds what the physical body can process or manage, which relates to the clocks in a clairvoyant reading. Punctuated by a cycle of ego death or the dark night of the soul, Growth periods may last days, weeks, years, even a lifetime, but result in increased understanding, psychic development, and greater spiritual awareness.
Growth periods are unique and deeply personal experiences that include emotional and even physical pain. It can be related to spiritual or psychic practice and life events of birth, death, illness, injury, breakups, job loss, or anything that challenges the individual to stop, reassess, process, and take new steps forward.
In developmental psychology, it mirrors periods of developmental regression, when it appears that an individual is taking a step back when in actuality, there is a consolidation occurring beneath surface symptoms. Understanding growth periods and practicing self-care nurtures and comforts an often uncomfortable experience. This may also include a daily practice of clairvoyant meditation and using psychic tools.
The Hero’s Journey
Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987) was an American professor of literature who focused on comparative mythology and comparative religion. He explored many facets of the human experience influenced by Carl Jung’s analytical psychology. In his explorations and writings, he discovered a common monomyth that spanned across ages and cultures. That is the myth of The Hero’s Journey.
Campbell was prolific in his writing, looking at myths and spirituality through a western lens. In his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), Campbell discusses The Hero’s journey that mirrors the experience of spiritual and psychic development. Campbell’s exploration continues to inspire philosophers, artists, and writers and contributed to George Lucas’s writing of The Star Wars saga.
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered, and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” – (Campbell, 1949)
The Hero’s Journey is a cyclical quest that has three main phases which are: The Departure (where the individual leaves what is familiar), The Initiation (where the individual faces a challenge or conflict), and The Return, (where the individual returns healed, resurrected and transformed).
Within these three major phases of The Hero’s Journey, there are many stages including the death stage is when the hero descends into the underworld and faces profound challenges that lead to symbolic death, rebirth, and transformation. This journey is similar to the nature of the psychic growth period.
Tarot, Major Arcana, and The Fool’s Journey
Tarot is a commonly known divination tool but also applies to personal development through creative practices such as story writing and journaling. The tarot’s major arcana is archetypical and follows the cycle of the Hero’s Journey. It also tells a story of an individual’s growth periods. In tarot terms, it is called The Fool’s Journey.
Each card in the major arcana may indicate similar periods of embarking, initiation, and return identical to the narrative of The Hero’s Journey. Symbols and metaphors are merely tools to develop greater insight during a growth period. There are no fixed rules, and meanings are personal and subjective.
The Fool card is the hero embarking on a journey of self-discovery. The Tower card may is a tearing down of what once was familiar, similar to diving into the underworld and exploring our shadows. The death card is shedding of a former self, spiritual, mental, physical, or symbolic, where the challenge is to find the true self that lies within when a layer of the ego strips away. The devil card shows the shadow self’s temptations and tribulations that when confronted and mastered, lead to integration, acceptance, and centering in personal power.
Symptoms of Growth Periods
- Fatigue
- Intense emotions such as anger, grief, sadness
- Heightened sensitivity
- Apathy
- Feeling lethargic
- Frozen
- Wanting to sleep
- Wanting to avoid seeing things through mindless escapes
- Questioning, feeling uncertain
- Self-doubt
- Lack of motivation
- Intense dreams or nightmares
- Increased appetite or no appetite
- Sudden changes or shifts in lifestyle, employment, and relationships
Managing Growth Periods
- Be gentle with yourself
- Don’t judge yourself
- Breathe
- Drink water
- Eat to support your body
- Meditate
- Maintain your practice, no matter how you feel
- Move your body
- Sleep
- Do something nice for yourself
- Talk to a friend
- Get out in nature
- Follow your needs as they arise
A Psychic Perspective
In the path to self-discovery and increasing psychic awareness, growth periods, while uncomfortable, are crucial to psychic development. It can be seen as shedding, releasing, recalibrating, and consolidating spiritual and psychic information in the physical body, integrating the new awareness into everyday life.
When experiencing a growth period, it is helpful to meditate, take care of the body and daily physical needs. Consider growth periods as a transient and temporary state, and cultivate neutrality, elevating your vibration to one of gratitude, as well as grace. Spiritual self-care is often easier in theory than in practice, but this transition in your life is manageable with simple techniques and consistency.
There are many paths to support the individual on their journey. There is no quick fix or singular method to pass through. Using psychic tools and practices may also provide support during growth periods. If following a program of psychic or clairvoyant study, it is also beneficial to participate in reading and healing circles to help release and clear out pictures and energies that are surfacing.
Knowing that growth periods are an integral, however fleeting part of psychic development minimizes the intensity and dramatic unfolding of growth periods to manageable ones. In the words of medieval Sufi poets, English poet Edward FitzGerald, and later Abraham Lincon “This too shall pass”.
If you want to explore psychic tools, meditation, and psychic development, sign up for our Clairvoyant Meditation Free Open House to learn about course offerings or book a psychic reading or spiritual healing through The Psychic School.
