Growth

Today I wrapped up the final day of my training as a psychologist. It’s been just over eight years since I started this journey, and this whole week has felt surreal. As I had my last sessions with patients that I’ve worked with over the past year, cleared out my office, and met with a clinical supervisor for the last time as a trainee, it seemed both mundane and momentous. My next step is to work as independently licensed psychologist, and perhaps the reality will sink in as I begin that work.

Yet it would be a missed opportunity if I did not reflect on what this represents as I close the chapter on my training. I started in 2016, the same year that I moved to Kansas City and found Peace Church. My growth as a person and psychologist since then has never seemed dramatic or fast, but rather, happened bit by bit. Even over the course of this final year of training, I did not readily perceive development as it was happening. Even so, I can confidently say I am a more competent and skilled psychologist today than I was when I began this fellowship.

So it is with many things in life; we are each changing and developing incrementally throughout our lives. Once we leave school or training programs, it is not often that we mark this growth, but perhaps we would benefit from practicing some reflection (and celebration) of the changes we have made. It might be handling stress better, or more clearly communicating with our loved ones, or even being kinder to ourselves—changes that are not simple to quantify or directly observe but may be there upon introspection. So I invite us all to think back on the past year (or five or ten) and ask, in what way have I grown?

Creator, thank you for your gentle guidance as we move through life. May we be ever growing more like you.

Elizabeth is a Peace Member of over 8 years who now lives in Chicago.