Structure limits, confines, and restricts.
Expansion is the act of moving beyond limitations, of transcending confinement, of emerging beyond restriction.
On the surface, structure and expansion seem like completely opposite energies.
But that’s only if you think about the physical realm.
In the world of physical matter, a container marks the outer limits of capacity. When you have a box of a certain size, there’s a limit to what you can fit inside it.
But in the emotional and spiritual realm, it’s the opposite effect: the container is the the foundation that supports expansion. The box is a step toward the infinite, rather than a source of confinement.
This all comes back to the nervous system.
The Nervous System Seeks Safety
The nervous system’s primary job is to cultivate safety. When we feel held and supported, when we are in the stable structure of people who care for and nourish us, we feel the freedom to be fully expressive and expansive.
Watch How Children Act
An easy example of this is with kids. It’s common for kids to have melt-downs after school. If you’re a parent, it can be infuriating. How is it that they can get through a day of school ok but suddenly have a melt-down when they return home?
The answer is that home is often where children feel safest to fully express themselves. They trust the structure of the love of their parent. In fact, it’s only those kids who trust the structure at home that have melt-downs at home.
By the way, children who don’t feel safe at home or with their parents generally effort to maintain their best behavior around their parents, out of fear of what might happen if they expressed themselves fully.
In that case, the expression comes out in different places — perhaps with a therapist, or friends.
Adults are really just bigger versions of children.
When we feel that we have a supportive structure, we are more likely to fully express ourselves. We speak aloud our “crazy” ideas, or the perspective that might not be shared by all. When we don’t feel that safety, we keep our best ideas inside.
This is true in families, in workplace cultures, and in every type of group or one-on-one relationship.
You Don’t Need Better Ideas
If you’re feeling stuck, you likely don’t need better ideas; you need a more supportive environment.
What limits our fullest expression, our best ideas, our most creative work is often not the lack of ideas or insights, but the lack of a supportive structure that gives us the safety to speak our minds and fully express ourselves.
When we have people in our lives who hold space for us, who welcome expression of our ideas, we can fully unleash our potential.
The stability of structure and support is what gives us the foundation from which we can expand.
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