The Grief of Growing
As they say, “growth often feels like loss before it feels like gain”.
There is a quiet kind of grief that doesn’t often get talked about enough. The kind that doesn’t come from losing someone, but from becoming someone new. As we grow and evolve throughout life, it is natural to experience a sense of grief for the version of ourselves we may feel is getting left behind. In these moments, part of us keeps looking back, sometimes in longing, for who we used to be.
As we age, gain insight, and grow into ourselves, we aren’t just adopting new parts of ourselves, but we can also simultaneously be letting go of roles, habits, and even goals that once felt essential to our identity. That loss can carry an undercover form of grief that affects how we view our present and future selves. The impact of losing a former version of self can show up as feelings of nostalgia, uncomfortability in decision making, a sense of lost identity, or sadness for a past version that felt life was simpler, free, more certain, or just different. A former self that idealized a certain path that our current selves have strayed from, which then can create anxieties regarding the potential path for the future self.
What makes this kind of grief confusing is that growth is usually viewed as a positive, so permission to mourn what is being left behind can feel difficult. However, two things can be true at once. We can move forward AND miss who we used to be. By honouring the version of ourselves that got us to where we are today, it can become easier to make peace with the difficult, ongoing task of change that life requires of us as humans.
There is something deeply compassionate about holding space for the past version of self that was doing the best they could with the resources and awareness they had at the time. Even the parts that we have outgrown, or we feel disconnected from now, once served a specific purpose. They protected you, shaped you, and carried you to this current version of self, who is also doing their best with what they know today. Differing from the person you once knew does not equate to any version of the self being lost, but rather represents an expansion of who we once were.
You are not a replacement of your former self, you are an integration of every version of you, each one shaping the person you are today. Together they’ve created space for greater understanding, depth, and truth. With this increased awareness comes discomfort, and that is human. It is part of the process of growth, a signal that you are moving through life with more consciousness than before.
Just like a video game, the avatar you start with in level one does not disappear as you continue to play. They’re still the same character at their core, but are shaped by every challenge they’ve faced and lessons learned along the way. Gained insight and skill development allows them to level up! The level one part of you was just starting out, learning the rules, and figuring things out with the tools they had. That part of you is still here, just evolved.
The part that was just starting out, navigating life with limited tools and potentially less responsibilities may have felt that life was easier then. Not necessarily because it was easier, but because life hadn’t yet asked you to carry as much as you are today. This is where compassion of self lives. Not in wanting to go back in time, but in recognizing how much you’ve held, learned, and grown.
A reminder that all versions of yourself were/are operating with the information available at a given point in time. You are not wrong for being someone different today, missing a time that felt easier to navigate, or for still finding your footing in who you are becoming. You have not left yourself behind, you are becoming someone who can hold more than you once could.