Healthy personal growth is creative personal growth. It is about exactly what it says, growth. It is not about becoming more good or a 'better' person, it is about gaining more autonomy, becoming more authentic, more genuinely who we are. Healthy Personal Growth leads to inner richness, the ability to have empathy, but it varies from the simple idea of "being good". A genuine person has no need to be malicious towards another – they would only harm themselves. But it is still not the same as'being good'.
Most religions seem to have some adjunct against the mistake of going after "being good". Christians say, 'The path to hell is laid with good intentions' and Buddhists say, 'It takes all the wisdom of the wise to undo the harm done by the merely good.
Whatever we are experiencing, we can grow through it if we accept it. There is no point, for instance, trying to be happy, if we are experiencing grief, but by embracing our grief, rather than pretending it is not there, we become deeper richer people. Likewise there is no point in pretending you love someone if you do not. You'll only confuse them and yourself.
Healthy personal growth is about coming to trust yourself and finding ways to help you to change habits you would rather be rid of. It is about becoming real and more alive in every moment, regardless of what that moment is bringing.
Healthy personal growth is about becoming more of who you are. Someone once said, people grow for the same reason as the amoeba – irritation! And perhaps that is so, but it is equally so that we grow because we have the potential to grow, without that potential we would not feel the irritation.
The Author Moreen Scott lived for two years in a Buddhist community, has undergone depth therapy and worked as a counsellor. She has a BA Hons Degree and a PGCE. Visit her site where she looks at the ideas of Freud, Jung and Carl Rogers and the systems of Buddhism and Astrology on the subject of Self and offers personal growth resources from a person centred perspective.
