#85 The Real Trajectory of Growth When It Feels Like You're Back Where You Started

Have you ever thought you were finally making progress... only to find yourself right back in a familiar pattern and wonder if anything had really changed at all?Growth can be incredibly encouraging when we can see it happening.But what about the moments that don't look like growth?The argument you thought you'd moved beyond. The reaction you thought you'd changed. The family pattern that seemed to be getting better, until suddenly, there it is again.It can be easy to look at that moment and think, We're right back where we started.But are we?In this deeply personal episode, Trish returns to the family car rides she has shared about in recent episodes. After intentionally creating a new and much more connected experience together, the next family trip didn't begin nearly as well.And that raised a bigger question:How do we actually know whether growth is happening?Through personal storytelling, practical neuroscience, and the lens of The Road to Reconnection™, Trish explores what becomes visible when we stop measuring growth only by whether an individual moment went the way we hoped and begin looking at the larger trajectory.This isn't about putting a positive spin on every difficult experience or insisting that something isn't a setback when it feels like one.It's about getting curious about whether we may sometimes call something a setback because we're measuring the wrong thing.In this episode, you'll learn:Why growth rarely follows the steady upward trajectory we may expect.How a familiar pattern can reappear without necessarily meaning you're back where you started.Why the outcome of a difficult moment isn't the only place to look for evidence of change.How noticing, understanding, responding, recovering, and repairing differently can reveal growth that might otherwise be missed.Why something new can represent meaningful movement even when it doesn't yet look like the outcome you're working toward.How approaching difficult experiences as information can help reveal what you may need for the next step.Why measuring each individual experience as a success or failure can sometimes make continued growth harder.Up close, we may only be able to see the moment we're standing in.The good one.The hard one.The one that felt like progress.The one that made us wonder if we'd lost it.But an individual moment and the trajectory of growth are not the same thing.Sometimes we have to step back far enough to ask not only, Did this go the way I hoped?But also:What was different this time?What became available?What did I understand that I didn't understand before?What did I learn about where I need to go next?Because maybe the question isn't simply whether we moved forward or backward.Maybe it's whether we can learn from where we are now and take the next step from here.If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat! For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.