How to Thrive During Times of Stress and Challenge

Safe Growth in Action

Source: Tara Moore/Getty

Co-authored with Joel Klepac

Whatever internal balance you had before COVID has likely been challenged over the past two years. From disrupted work-rest patterns to the right amount of connection and alone time, major changes have likely affected both your inner and outer world.

Likely, you’ve asked yourself, “Do I hunker down and play it safe, or do I stretch myself now, in ways that I can?” From starting a new exercise routine to looking for a new job or career, the safety versus growth dynamic is a very real and perhaps unsettling part of life.

Amanda Gorman faced a high-stakes version of the safety-growth dynamic before delivering her now-famous poem on Inauguration Day, 2021. Hearing how others successfully, and not so successfully, navigate this universal dilemma can bring insight and inspiration. And connection, too—you are not alone with this challenge.

Finding our feet in the growth-safety dance is a key to thriving. A simple process, outlined below, can help by increasing awareness and clarifying effective action.

Multiplicity of Mind

There is a very real part of you that is the safety advocate and another very real part that pleads for growth. This is the concept of “multiplicity of mind,” which normalizes this inner duality.

Attuning to these parts can be helpful, as illuminated in the work of Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., and Dan Seigel, M.D. Working with aspects of ourselves that advocate for polarized needs, like safety vs. growth, can be a helpful way to live more gently with yourself and effectively accomplish your goals.

Getting Curious About Safety and Growth

Consider a current dilemma, like whether or not to start a new exercise routine. On the spectrum of safety and growth below, reflect and name where you might currently be. Do you immediately go to a goal of working out seven days a week, for an hour at a time? Or do you approach it with more flexibility—perhaps by starting with one or two days a week for 20-30 minutes?

The Growth--Safety Spectrum

Source: Joel Klepac

As a thinking exercise, explore the extremes and see how they feel. This can help you get out of the either/or mindset and can help foster a new path forward. Often, it’s easy to get stuck on the rigid safety-seeking side, choosing comfort to the exclusion of growth.

Conversely, rigid growth-seeking patterns can disregard safety concerns and needed recuperation periods, setting you up for burnout. So, how can you listen carefully to all sides?

Listening to the “Insistent on Growth” Side

Do you feel guilty if you are not always engaged in a personal growth project or are you constantly comparing your growth status with someone else's? If so, begin by asking your growth side what it’s afraid of happening if it weren’t pushing you so hard to grow?

Often, feelings like the fear of not mattering, not contributing, not proving oneself, not being seen, heard, or taken seriously come up. It can also be stuck in the terror of going back to a really dark place and trying to get as far away as possible from that experience.

Rather than trying to disregard these vital needs for emotional safety, to matter and belong, try to be grateful to the side of you that is seeking what it needs. In doing so, you just might be able to see a perspective on how you do matter to the people around you.

Listening to the Safety-Seeking Side

Maybe you feel high anxiety any time you think about stepping out and trying something new? Perhaps even the smallest risks seem intolerable.

Again, try to listen inside to that part of you that is pushing for safety. What is it most worried about if you were to step out and start something new? Maybe it’s a fear of failure, or disappointment, being "exposed," or feeling humiliated?

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So often our experiences growing up are packaged in a “to-go” container, keeping us afraid of our middle school bullies even though they are long gone. If you can, offer gratitude to this side of you that has been guarding your needs for belonging and connection, for safety and respect.

Can you update your rigid safety-seeking part on the current status of your relationships, like the safety you have now, those who are rooting for you, and all who have believed in you, even when you didn’t succeed? Address those fears not by dismissing them but updating them as you might with a child afraid of something they don’t fully understand.

The Journey Toward Integration and Thriving

Humans thrive in the middle ground of flexible safety and growth by listening to the concerns of both sides and addressing them so that urges don’t turn into emergencies. Attunement and responsiveness to the concerns of each side allow them to relax, and to feel like a vital part of the whole.

Rather than an overzealous burst of enthusiasm that gets you to buy a home gym without consulting the safety side that dooms the plan from the start, you can bring both sides to the negotiating table to find a reasonable way forward.

Safety and growth need not be at war. Both are vital needs, contributing to balance and personal development. Bringing both to the table is a step toward integration and is a key to thriving. With practice, you’ll know it’s possible, even during stress and challenge.

Co-author Joel Klepac is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist.