Sometimes you progress, and sometimes you regress

Life lessons from a 6-month-old baby

This title has been stuck in my head for two weeks. I had a precise idea of what I wanted to say but no clue how to express it.

It starts with a story. Last month, my cousin told me that her daughter was ‘regressing’. To which I answered, rather perplexed, ‘What does that mean? She’s 6 months old. She explained ‘She is coming out of her routines. It happens at the beginning and is very common. I had forgotten about this. I had forgotten how upsetting it was.’

Babies are the primordial form of humans. They are taught new habits (primarily focused on sleep, to ensure the survival of their caregivers…). But then they ‘regress’. Patterns are then required to be re-established until ultimately ingrained. There’s even a book about it. It’s called ‘The Wonder Weeks’. It should be called ‘The WTF Weeks’ because parents who are unaware don’t understand what’s going on and freak out. But when you’re aware and you know regressions are natural; it makes it easier.

I couldn’t help but notice the parallel with my own ‘adult’ life. All habits have progression-regression patterns: working out, cooking more, tidying up etc. etc.

Often, however, and more importantly, it goes beyond the ‘behavioural’. It goes deeper. Sometimes, after years of ‘working’ on ourselves, we manage to reach what I call ‘inner peace milestones’. These milestones are moments of internal paradigm shifts where you manage to fully integrate a mindset that serves you better. With all the psycho-cognitive emotional landscape that goes with it. They’re adaptive mindsets. They’re chosen, not reactive.

I’ll give you an example: last September, I completely unlocked the feeling of ‘enoughness’. I lasted all the way through to March. I even wrote about it here. Starting with ‘enough’ was an amazing feat for someone who was perpetually fixated on the future, obsessively striving to ‘achieve’. It filled me with a deep sense of peace. I could still aim for things but I had that solid base to start from. I kept thinking to myself “OMG Is this what low neuroticism feels like?”. That led to a blissed period of extremely low anxiety. The hard-won outcome of years of deep difficult inner work. It was like living a different life; a better one. Even though everything was the same.

Then I regressed. A couple of things triggered me, deeply. Suddenly, nothing felt like enough anymore*. When nothing feels like enough, you wake up every day feeling heavy, feeling like you should find a solution yesterday. It sucks, I don’t recommend it.

It took three full months to get out of my funk. I understood what was happening and why but could not shake it off. But it still took me months, because the easiest mindset patterns in triggering situations are the ones that have been embedded in your nervous system for 20 years. Not the one you’ve been trialling for 6 months.

I wanted to share this because our vision of progress is way too linear. Or is it just me? (I don’t want to extrapolate). Perhaps it should be a curve that goes up and down with big dips. Or it should be a series of cycles.

I wanted to share this because I used to think that regression meant I was back to square one. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

If you expect regression, and consider it a normal occurrence, I’m convinced you get a much better shot at robustly progressing.

See you soon,

Lina