🎙️ Episode 20 - Becoming: The Psychology of Personal Growth
What does it actually mean to grow?
We talk endlessly about healing, self-awareness, personal development and becoming the “best version” of ourselves. But real psychological growth is rarely comfortable, linear or particularly Instagrammable.
Sometimes growth means changing.
Sometimes it means accepting something you cannot change.
And sometimes it means finally recognising that the coping strategy that once protected you has become the very thing keeping you stuck.
In the final episode of Season 2, Adele and Dr Lindsay Aikman explore the psychology of personal growth: what allows human beings to change, what gets in the way, and why insight alone is rarely enough.
Together, they unpack:
🌱 What personal growth actually means - and why becoming psychologically healthier isn't about becoming endlessly happier, calmer or more productive
🧠 The difference between insight and change - why understanding exactly why you behave the way you do doesn't necessarily stop you doing it
💔 How trauma can interrupt growth - particularly when survival strategies such as avoidance, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, perfectionism, control or emotional shutdown become deeply embedded
⚡ Why triggers can become extraordinary sources of information - revealing the places where our past is still shaping our present
🛡️ Why we resist change even when we desperately want it - because familiar patterns can feel safer to the nervous system than unfamiliar possibilities
🪞 The courage to look at yourself properly - recognising your patterns, taking responsibility for your impact on other people and doing so without collapsing into shame
❤️ Why relationships are such powerful environments for growth - because other people expose the parts of ourselves that are almost impossible to see alone
🧘 Learning to tolerate discomfort - why growth often requires staying with uncertainty, vulnerability, frustration and difficult emotion rather than immediately escaping them
🔄 Psychological flexibility - developing the capacity to adapt, reconsider, learn, repair and allow new information to change us
🌿 Outgrowing old versions of ourselves - recognising when identities, beliefs, relationships or coping mechanisms that once served us no longer fit the person we're becoming
Ultimately, personal growth isn't about reaching some final, perfectly healed version of yourself.
There isn't one.
It's about becoming increasingly able to notice yourself, understand yourself, regulate yourself, challenge yourself and choose what you do next rather than simply repeating what you've always done.
And perhaps that's what growth really is:
Not becoming somebody else, but having more freedom in who you choose to become.
🎧 Join Adele and Lindsay for the final conversation of Season 2 as they reflect on change, trauma, relationships and what they've learned about the extraordinary human capacity to keep evolving.
Topics Covered: Personal Growth, Growth Mindset, Trauma, Triggers, Coping Mechanisms, Psychological Flexibility, Self-Awareness, Behaviour Change, Relationships, Emotional Regulation, Resilience, Personal Development, Psychotherapy.
