The Courage to Let Something Grow: A Spring Reflection

By Leila Briggs

Spring has a way of making everything look easy. The flowers bloom, the trees fill out, and the light slowly returns. There’s a quiet sense that everything is coming back to life - and with that, an unspoken expectation that we should be doing the same.

We’re supposed to be growing, opening, and starting again.

But what often goes unspoken is how much courage it actually takes to let something grow.

When Openness Doesn’t Feel Safe

Growth requires openness and curiosity - and that is not always easy. For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, openness hasn’t always been safe. Curiosity can feel vulnerable.

Whether it comes from loss, instability, heartbreak, or simply living in survival mode for too long, the body and mind learn how to protect.

We learn how to stay guarded, how to anticipate what might go wrong, and how to hold things tightly to maintain a sense of control. These patterns are not weaknesses - they are adaptations. They helped us get through.

Our intuition can adapt as well. An individual can develop what I call “survival intuition.” This is intuition that primarily alerts us to danger - to faltering relationships and missteps. Intuitive hits don’t always come through as strongly for opportunities, adventure, or joy.

Growth Asks for Something Different

But growth asks for something different.

It asks us to loosen that grip, even if only slightly. It asks us to trust - not fully or all at once - but just enough to allow something new to emerge.

It asks us to work with Spirit, not direct it or become passive in its guidance.

And all of that can feel deeply uncomfortable. At times, it can even feel dangerous.

Because letting something grow can mean stepping into the unknown and accepting that we cannot fully control how things unfold.

What Is Already Trying to Grow

Spring does not wait for us to feel ready. The seeds that were planted - sometimes long before we had the capacity to tend to them - begin to shift beneath the surface. They stretch, slowly and persistently, toward the light.

Not all at once, and not perfectly, but steadily.

Maybe that is the real invitation of this season. Not to force ourselves into growth or rush into a new version of who we think we should be, but to notice what is already trying to grow.

It might be subtle - a new thought, a quiet desire, or a small sense of possibility that wasn’t there before. It might feel unfamiliar, or even a little vulnerable to acknowledge.

Growth does not have to be loud to be real, and it does not have to be fast to be meaningful.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do is simply allow it. To not immediately shut it down, to not talk ourselves out of it, and to not retreat into old patterns the moment something new begins to emerge.

Instead, we can let it exist. Let it breathe. Let it take up space, even if that space is small.

Even now (as a healer for over a decade) I find that growth isn’t something I rush into. It’s something I notice, sit with, and slowly allow. That process - of learning to feel safe in something new - has become part of the growth itself.

Sometimes that process is graceful for me. Other times, I have to actively remind myself to relax and lean on support.

The Courage to Continue

Because the courage is not always in starting over. Sometimes, the courage is in allowing something to continue. It is in trusting that what has been planted - whether by you, by life, or by something greater - is still working its way forward.

You do not have to become something new this spring. You only have to be willing to let something grow.