Today’s Excerpt:

Growing up happens so gradually, sometimes you hardly know it’s happening. Remembering challenges that you’ve already been through can help you learn to face new ones.

“Bean Time-Lapse: 25 days” (3-min video) shows the growth process from seed to sprout.

Discuss:

• What happens to the seed? (It breaks open and eventually falls away.)
• How does this video remind you of your own growing up?

Consider these takeaways from the videos:

• Life moves fast. Enjoy it.
• Growth is challenging. The seed breaks open, the butterfly is weak right after leaving the cocoon, the girl in the video sometimes has tears in her eyes.
• Remembering our past challenges can help us through our current ones.
• There may be times when it feels like you are not growing emotionally or spiritually — when you feel stuck. You might just be sending down roots or are figuratively cocooning for a transformation to come.
• Inner growth can happen even in stillness. We don’t see growth beneath the soil or growth in the cocoon. But without that growth, the transformation that follows wouldn’t happen.
• Like outer physical growth, inner emotional and spiritual growth takes patience.