Growth is humbling. Growth requires vulnerability. Crayfish are a wonderful metaphor here: to grow they must shed their protective exoskeleton, because with their tough skin intact their soft underbody cannot expand. So periodically throughout their lives they shed their skin, expose their softness to the world, and grow radically. But this is also their time of highest risk, as their claws are now soft and useless and their backs pierceable. The same fish and frogs they spend their lives eating can suddenly turn around and eat them back. Thus, during this time they must protect themselves. Generally they crawl under a rock and hide, doing their growth in a private, safe space, not unlike the bamboo gardens, a confidential journal, or a sanctuary for meditation.
We who cannot handle the pain and vulnerability of growth are consigned to stay stuck in life. We must keep our true selves buried from the world’s eye and from our own. We cannot face our full range of feelings because this is too dangerous. These feeling tell the truth. We must instead act out our inner truth – our buried pain and rage – in disguised form, through addictions and self-destructive behaviours and inappropriate relationships (most notably with our own children), and even physical illness. The child within tells the truth when the conscious mind cannot.
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